


First Contact

by yesfir



Category: Homestuck
Genre: A case of terminal POV vacillation, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angry Kissing, Arranged Marriage, Blood, Child Soldiers, Death, Drunk Shenanigans, Emetophobia, F/F, F/M, Fingerfucking, Getting baked on pie, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Consensual Underage Sex, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of homophobia, Minor Sollux Captor/Feferi Peixes, Not Really Character Death, Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Past Suicide Attempt, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recerence to substance abuse, Sex, Sexy sexy linguistics, Sloppy Makeouts, Slow Burn, Space colony setting, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Tentacle Sex, Trauma, UPT - unresolved pale tension, Violence, Xenophilia, kind of, more like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2019-07-01 09:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 116,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15771036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesfir/pseuds/yesfir
Summary: They came to the most isolated colony at the edge of human territories in search of reprieve, a way of putting their broken little family back together again. Instead the Strider-Lalondes find themselves in an insular society where time doesn’t merely seem to have stopped, but majestically slid backwards a few hundred years. And then there’s that neighboring colony of aggressive aliens to deal with.In an attempt to stop unchecked bloodshed between the two settlements, the trolls agree to participate in a time-honored tradition among humans, both sides believing that they will have the upper hand. As the children of the most influential woman in the colony, Dave and Rose suddenly have very little choice but to shoulder the responsibilities of their positions.While balancing atop some very touchy political tension and trying to outpace their tangled mess of a past, adapting to their new lives - to their new spouses - doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy.





	1. Old certainties

**Author's Note:**

> ...Fish puns are hard. That’s all there really is to say about the matter. My apologies in advance.
> 
> Also admittedly not much happens in this chapter, but in the next one I promise that the protagonists will actually meet and everything.

It’s true what they say. Out in the colonies, where life is uncertain every day, people return to whatever old certainties they can find. It’s not just that you live with a strange mix of new and old technologies, charging your portable devices on the sun cell blocks right before you have to go churn butter or some shit like that. But old kinds of thinking creep in too, in all kinds of ways. Rose calls it fascinating, absentmindedly undoing an offensive row of knitting on a new project, as she watches a group of people pour out an offering of apple cider, honey and salt at a small altar, as a thanks for the harvest.

There’s a rustle above them, and Dave looks up just in time to see Dirk swing himself out of the loading dock to the hover craft bay, landing neatly on the ground two floors down. Showoff... but what’s new? “I mean,” the oldest of the four of them says, indicating he’s been listening, “there are worse things to reanimate than superstitions, if you’re scavenging off humanity’s dark and strange corners.”

“Mm, I’ve seen more worrying things too,” Rose murmurs, her needles clicking together softly. “Some of the people in the village curtsy or bow when we walk past, haven’t you noticed? Presumably because we’re the genetic descendants of the woman in charge of this place. Their queen, if you will.”

“Hold on.” Roxy looks up from where she’s been tinkering with Bartholomeow, the kitten she’d adopted after he lost his back legs in an accident. Dirk has helped her fit tiny robot legs onto him, and though they need constant adjusting as he grows, he seems to be taking to them well. “Hoooooooold on. If mom’s a queen, doesn’t that mean...” Dave already knows what’s coming, and watches his youngest sister clutch her own cheeks and beam with some amusement. “I’M A _PRINCESS_?”

“You say that as if it’s somehow news,” Rose says with a half smile, pointedly ignoring Dirk, who had been mouthing _‘don’t encourage her’_ at her while Roxy wasn’t looking.

Dave watches his siblings and says nothing, pretending to be preoccupied with the chicken he’s plucking. All four of them are children of the new technology that their mother had spearheaded herself, allowing for a quicker population of new colonies than simply waiting for nature to take its course. In a way, their mom might just be prouder of them than any other parent our there, because they’re all the direct result of her genius and hard work, rather than a simple biological function. And she dotes on them her own way, for all that she’s constantly busy, constantly working, and most certainly constantly intoxicated.

Dave supposes that he loves his mother, but it’s hardly surprising that the four of them turned out... well, like this.

Thinking of them as ‘oldest’ or ‘youngest’ is kind of a joke, since they’d all been created within months of each other, as if to prove a point - and yes, Dave is certain that had been one of the reasons. First Dirk, who took being the son of a legendary genius a little bit too hard, and who can’t seem to relax for two seconds as a result. Then Rose, who instead goes out of her way to be as unlike their mother as possible, and then quietly resents it when she encourages it. Dave can’t quite pin down his own specific neurosis as the second youngest, other than perhaps a tendency of feeling like it’s his job to protect the others from themselves and the rest of the world. He’s relieved that Roxy at least seems fairly unencumbered by all that shit, and she mostly does what she wants with great enthusiasm. All they’ve got to do is to keep all alcohol far out of her reach.

“Perhaps we should try to dress the part,” Dave suggests, yanking out the last handful of feathers. “Fit Dirk out with some poofy asshole pants, knee socks and silk slippers. Get him looking properly fucking royal. What do you say, bro?”

Dirk fixes him with a level look, and he’s apparently resigned himself to his fate at this point, because it’s followed by a curt nod. “Absolutely. I’m ready for this fairy godbrother treatment whenever you are. Lay the velvet breeches upon me, and I’ll show you what a true prince looks like. But only, and I want to make this clear, if I can also wear a coronet.”

Rose hums, tapping one knitting needle to her lips. “It’s actually a shame that pattern making is not my forte. I suppose knitting or crocheting wouldn’t be the same thing.”

“Nonono, that’s fine!” Roxy flaps her arms excitedly. “Well, maybe not the full outfit, but least you can crochet him a coronet. That would be cute!”

“What? No, absolutely not. What kind of prince wears a crocheted coronet? That’s one step away from wearing a damn doily on my head.”

The conversation deteriorates in that manner, with Roxy gently poking fun at Dirk in between giggles, and Dirk doing his whole inscrutable, long-suffering thing - even though they all know he’ll do basically anything for their youngest sister - with Rose fanning the flames, smiling faintly. But as he wanders off to the pump to wash off his hands under the erratically sputtering stream of water, Dave thinks about what Rose said. He can see what she means; he doesn’t much like the idea of reverting to a time where some people were considered better just because of who they were born to. That’s not only bullshit, it’s dangerous as well. Shit, haven’t they seen proof of that while interacting with the other alien settlement on this planet?

Not to mention it goes hand in hand with all kinds of other outdated thinking, too. Once you start thinking that some people are more valuable than others, it’s easy to find other reasons for why some aren’t as good even as ‘common’ folk, create a lower caste that it’s okay for them to look down on in turn.

Besides which, as much as he might joke about it with his siblings, Dave is pretty damn certain he doesn’t want to be any kind of prince. It’s bad enough, dealing with being a public figure most of his life, both because of his mom and the manner of his conception. Coronets or no, being perceived as some sort of prince in the eyes of the people here would be bound to involve even more awkward obligations and public scrutiny. He doesn’t need that. His family sure as fuck doesn’t need that.

A few months down the line, when the irony of this train of thought became apparent, Dave would find himself quite unable to appreciate it. Mostly because by then he’d be ass deep in exactly the sort of shit he’d been hoping to avoid.

 

* * *

 

Feferi enters the reclining block where her friends are waiting for her, slamming the door behind her. For some dumbass bureaucratic reasons, they’ve all been officially named her ‘entourage’, and are made to sit around there twiddling their globes or whatever they can think of to drive away boredom, as she attends the attempted peace talks with the weird aliens that moved in right next to their colony. The Condesce had insisted her heiress would be present for these negotiations since she couldn’t be, so here they all are.

Now they watch as she sags against the door and buries her face in her hands, letting out a long, aggravated groan. It’s unusual enough behavior from her that it makes most of them interrupt what they’re doing, and Karkat finds himself shoving his finger in his book to mark his place before lowering it into his lap.

“What’s wrong?” Sollux demands, already crossing the floor to crouch down in front of her.

“It’s... so... _stupid_.” She kicks her legs a bit where she sits, her movements somewhat awkward since she’s spent so much of her time underwater lately. “I just can’t bel _ieve_ we agreed to their dumb terms.”

__

Sollux scoots sideways to avoid the flailing appendages, frowning in concern, but before he can say something else he’s cut short.

“Agreed?” Eridan drawls, or tries to drawl, but the slight involuntary rise in his voice just makes it sound like some sort of nervous hiccough. “Don’t tell me we actually decided to _bargain_ with the savages.” His stupid accent makes the last word sound even more derisive.

“As much as my principles would have me naturally oppose anything he says, I have to agree with this loathsome sea dweller.” Equius ignores the filthy look Eridan sends him, crossing his arms. “Even agreeing to parlay with them was disgraceful.”

“They’re weeeeeeeeak! Why haven’t we just-“

“ _GLUB_!” Feferi cuts Vriska short by impatiently banging her fist on the door behind her. They all gradually fall silent, exchanging glances. Not too long ago, they would have talked over her and not thought much about it, but things have changed. The mantle of new responsibility now resting on her shoulders has given Feferi an air of authority which she never had before. The events of these last sweeps have changed her in in particular, though none of them can claim to be quite the same.

She seems to notice their reaction, and colors slightly, bright pink against pale grey cheeks. She’s still not used to it, and she doesn’t like it much. She still wants them to be her friends, not her subjects - she’s said as much herself. It’s not like Karkat doesn’t understand why, but it’s somewhat aggravating to see someone be handed leadership on a gold platter, and then immediately balk at the implications.

He’s sure he could do so much better. But of course he doesn’t have a chance to lead more or less _anyone_. No matter what some superstition fools might think.

Sollux takes Feferi’s hand in his, glaring over his shoulder at the rest of them. “Go on,” he urges her quietly. “Tell us.”

She sighs, seeming to calm down a little bit. “That’s just it. We _thought_ they were weak, but it turns out they’ve already codlonized numerous planets, and although most of their technology is fairly rudimentary, they keep spreading at an algaerming rate.” She wrinkles her nose slightly. “Some sort of biological advantage, apparently? They’re not reliant on a Mother Grub at all, from what I understand. They can prowcreate all on their own - and they’ve found some way of doing it even faster with technology.”

Kanaya gasps softly, looking half repulsed and half fascinated by the idea. Karkat can at least understand that first part, but honestly, the less he knows about weird alien reproduction, the better.

“Anyway,” Feferi continues, “our rayports indicate that despite being pretty small and weak, with no psionic powers to speak of either, they’re apparently really resourceful fighters. Others who have gone up against them have come to regret it. And since we can’t risk this coloachny right now, not with my lusus right here... we have to negotiate.” She pouts slightly. “Honestly, I’d find them and their way of life really _fascinating_ if it wasn’t for the stupid stuff they made us agree to.”

“Okay, the dramatic buildup is really fucking cute, but maybe you can spare us the any further pathetic attempts at masturbatory sponge-thrusting by just telling us what we’ve agreed to already?” Karkat slaps his book down with a loud bang, causing Tavros to start slightly next to him. “I mean really, I sure do love nothing as much as listening to someone who never gets to the fucking point, but unless everyone present harbors the same lamentable masochistic streak, I’m sure they’d enjoy it more if your highness could just spit it out already.” Sollux looks like he’s ready to bite his head off, and already has his mouth open when Feferi stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. She’s looking at Karkat, and her expression is... weird. He doesn’t like it at all, it’s not one he’s sure he’s ever seen her wear, but it’s kind of like-

-guilt?

“The humans demarlinded... well, it’s a form of traditional contract, apparently. It will involve legally binding two symbolically important trolls from our side to two humans of similar importance on theirs. These people will function as a form of tribute, and will in a way be hostages for both sides, assuring that neither side steps out of line.” She looks down, a very quiet ‘glub’ leaving her lips before she continues. “Because of this, they said it couldn’t just be anemonebody. They had to be of sentimental importance to the person with the most authority on each side. Since her Condescension-“ an almost invisible snarl “-wasn’t present, it had to be... me. I had to choose. And it had to be two of you.”

There is shocked silence, as everyone present furtively exchanges glances, the tension in the room suddenly mounting. Most of them don’t want to be the first to speak, in case that singles them out as a likely victim, Karkat figures. A couple look like they’re already planning how to get out of it if they are picked. Vriska’s fingers are slowly curling. But if the sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach means what he thinks it does, if the look on Feferi’s face has been for him... then he already knows who one of the tributes will be. But when he opens his mouth he can’t seem to make a sound other than a faint scraping sound, and so he simply sits there gaping like a fucking idiot.

“What kind of contract is it?” Terezi finally demands, lacing her fingers together in front of her face. Trust her to be the one to keep a cool head at a time like this. Trust her, also, to sound morbidly fascinated by this hideous farce.

Feferi winces slightly. “That’s the other thing. It’s something called a ‘marriage’. Humans seem to have some very strange ideas about romance, but more or less... um, it’s a contract that signifishes a- a-“ Her cheeks flush again. “-a concupiscent relationship between the two parties.”

The previous shocked silence is brutally crushed by a new, deeper silence, one that is even more shocked and horrified. No one speaks, or moves, or even looks at anyone else at this point. And then Karkat starts laughing.

It’s not a very happy laugh; in fact, it is the very opposite of that. It’s bitter, and while it might at first appear to be scornful, it is blatantly and pathetically obvious to everyone present that this is just a way to cover up something else, something that is twisted up and hurt. It’s making everyone feel really awkward, they squirm where they sit and avoid looking at him, and yet Karkat can’t seem to help himself.

“Ohhh. _Ohhhhhh_. I get it. I mean, it makes sense, right? From a royal point of view, I mean. If anyone is going to be offered as a sacrifice in some barbaric alien mating ritual, obviously it should be someone whose miserable, worthless mutant genetic material simply will never be a desirable offering to the Mother Grub, regardless of whom he might fill those quadrants with.” He rubs at his eyes, pretending like hell that it’s just tears of laughter. “I mean shit, it’s really obvious now that I think of it. Who else would it be?”

“That’s not true.” Feferi’s voice is low, her head bowed, and at least she’s not pretending like he isn’t the chosen candidate. “I wasn’t going to go into how I picked, it seemed like a kind of mean thing to do, but maybe it’s actually good if you know.”

Karkat’s laughter is slowly dying away now, but he tries to hold on to it as long as possible, because he’s pretty sure that the same can’t be said for the tears. “Go ahead. I think we all know that you’re full of shit, and that this is _exactly_ why you picked me, but go ahead. Why not lie to me as a sort of especially disrespectful parting gift?”

“ _FINE_. Just shut up and let me talk!” She glares, but she doesn’t really have it in her to keep it up. She sighs. “I was asked to pick one buoy and one girl. Because it’s a ritual concupiscent relationship, I decided to immediately exclude anyone who already has a stable matesprit or kismesis.”

Sollux, now slumped on the floor next to her and holding her hand, flushed slightly. They all know that the only ones that qualify are him and Feferi - and well, they honestly can’t blame her for excluding her own matesprit. They’d all do the same.

“On the buoy’s side, I then decided to first exclude the person who has conchstantly advocated for killing all humans,” she looks pointedly at Eridan, who crosses his arms sullenly, “because that just seems undiplomatic! Secondly I had to exclude a person who would simply break a fragile human body just by touching it, because that would defeat the porpoise.” Equius clears his throat, possibly in embarrassment, but he still looks relieved. “Then I decided to exclude a person who- who might become unstable if he should for any reason be deprived of the clamming substances he frequently ingests.”

They all glance at Gamzee, who appears to have fallen asleep on the floor at this point, or at least checked out completely. Despite himself, Karkat finds himself nodding. Yes, they all remember that one time they all got stranded without any supplies when they were still kids, and what happened after. They’d probably all be dead if Vriska and Kanaya hasn’t managed to somehow overpower him together, and that was before he hit his growth spurt. If anything like that were to happen now, and he’s be surrounded by aliens... things would not go well.

“So that left two alternatives,” Feferi continues, nodding at Tavros and Karkat. “I presented you both as equal suggestions for the rest of the highbloods to conchsider. But, well, you know what they’re like.” She rolls her eyes. “They didn’t think the humans would accept it if one of the offerings was- was-“

“Just saaaaaaaay it already. A cripple! The humans wouldn’t want a useless cripple as their tribute. Gosh, who can blame them!”

“Yes, thank you Vriska, very kelpful.” Feferi looks tired. “So, that only left...”

Karkat opens his mouth to argue, to say something biting, to tell her she’s lying. But what’s the point? He knows she’s right. So he just groans and drops his face into his hands. After a moment or two, he can feel Tavros hesitantly patting his shoulder, clearly trying not to show how relieved he is to not be sent off as a gift-wrapped fuck puppet for humans. Well, he supposes it’s a nice gesture at least.

“Very well. Shall we go, then?”

His head snaps up, and he glares in bewilderment at Kanaya, who is already on her feet and packing up her needles, threads and fabrics, meticulously folding what needs to be folded and sorting everything into the bag she carries for such purposes. Feferi is staring at her too, mouth half open.

“How- How did you know?”

“Well, you did say a boy and a girl, didn’t you?” She manages a small smile, even though the faint light from her skin flickers slightly. “It really wasn’t an all that difficult conclusion to jump to. Of course, the heiress herself is not a suitable option, which leaves only five girls, yes? And out of those five, only one isn’t already involved in a strong and stable moirallegiance.” She stops packing for a moment, her fingers quickly linking Vriska and Terezi, Equius and Nepeta, Aradia and Sollux. “I surmised that if at all possible, you would not wish to separate anyone in such a relationship either. And for an arrangement such as this to work, at least one ‘human marriaged’ couple will have to live among the humans at all time, am I correct?”

“...Yes.”

“Then I’m the obvious choice. Like Karkat, I have no quadrants officially filled - and I am perhaps a more diplomatic choice than some among us as well.”

“Heeeeeeeey!”

“Did I actually mention your name?” Kanaya gives Vriska a rather tart smile, then turns back to Karkat. He can’t read the expression in her eyes, other than that it’s both sad and determined at the same time. “Perhaps we ought to say our goodbyes, and then return to our own hives to collect our possessions?”

The goodbyes are awful. Terezi licks Karkat’s cheek, saying that she’s going to miss how delicious his tears are, and though he shouts at her for it, Karkat can’t help suspecting that he’ll miss all her cutesy, weird bullshit too. Eridan actually seems offended by not being picked - is he really _that_ desperate? - but at least holds it back a bit for his sake. Nepeta has tears in her eyes the whole time, and they both try desperately to act like she doesn’t. Sollux gives his shoulder an awkward nudge and tells him to insult the stupid aliens a bit extra for him, and then grumbles and complains when Karkat hugs him.

Gamzee seems bewildered and dejected when brought around and informed what is happening, and envelops Karkat in a tight hug that smells like gross slime pies and shitty soda. That makes his heart twist especially, as the pale thing that never really happened between them hovers like an inconvenient behemoth in the room. He should’ve said something by now. He should’ve done something back when Gamzee needed him. But it’s too late, and trying to make something happen now would just seem desperate - and, well, it would be cruel to Gamzee. He deserves better than to be a half-baked afterthought as Karkat is getting sent away.

“Hey, you- you take care of yourself, alright? Keep eating your disgusting pies, and no capricious fucking violence, you hear me?” That doesn’t count as pale flirting, right? That’s just good sense.

Gamzee slowly squeezes the horn in his hand, managing to produce a distressingly mournful honk. “You’ve got it, best friend. I’ll be all up and taking the best damn care of myself, so you’ll have to motherfucking promise to do the same.”

“What, me? I’ll be fine. Honestly, it’s just as well that she picked me, since I’m the most emotionally mature person among us, who actually understands that leadership involves some really fucking difficult decisions.” He ignores the derisive noise Vriska makes behind his back, leaning his head against Gamzee’s abdomen - that’s as far as he can reach nowadays - and allowing the warm wetness of his tears to slowly soak into his shirt. “I promise, okay?” He drops his voice at least a little bit. “I promise I’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

They don’t speak as their mother explains the situation to them. Dave finds his own face shutting down, slamming down hard on every perceptible emotion like a goddamn airlock. He doesn’t have to look at Dirk’s face to know his is doing the same.

Roxy fidgets unhappily. Rose calmly puts her knitting needles down.

“Shall I assume that the decision of whom exactly to involve in this strange charade has been left up to us, then?” she asks once their mother appears to have finished. She nods, her back turned to them as she mixes herself another drink. Rose’s eyes narrow, but Dave is pretty certain it’s because she can’t quite meet their gazes right now. She didn’t want this.

“I was the council’s decision - but they don’t really care who goes, as long as it’s one girl and one guy.”

Dave doesn’t look in the direction of that voice, refuses to acknowledge the flat, level statement in any way. He knows without looking that there is not a hint of an expression on the inscrutable bastard’s face. Not like with him and Dirk, who are trying not to give their hand away, but because there is simply nothing to show.

Their uncle doesn’t give a fuck, and he never has.

“Then I’m doing it.” Rose stands up with a confident half smile, shoulders back, chin raised. “A girl can have too much complacency and relaxation - and certainly too much of a small town life. This promises to be absolutely fascinating, not to mention delightfully absurd.”

Of course. They can’t let this happen to Roxy, after all. Of the four of them, she has always been the least fucked up, the one most likely to have a decent normal future ahead of her. They can’t take that opportunity away from her - and besides, Dave doesn’t even imagine that Rose is exaggerating all that much. She’ll get a kick out of this.

He knows what to do, too. Dirk’s mouth is already set, and it’s just like him to try to sacrifice himself too, because out of the four of them, _he_ is the master of self-sabotage. He’s the one who will always hurt himself without thinking, regardless of if it’s the right choice or not. But Dave isn’t going to let him this time. “I guess I’m doing this too.” His nonchalant tone is spoiled a bit by the fact that he stands up so quickly that he knocks his chair over. “Doesn’t look like I’ve got anything better to do.”

Dirk frowns, standing up too. “I can’t let you-“

“-do that, Dave? Holy shit dude, is now really the time to indulge in that old preposterous earth movie? Maybe you should just let it go, jesus.” Dirk looks pained, opens his mouth again to object, but Dave shakes his head and cuts him short. “Hey, I called it first, alright? I’d say I won the race pretty fucking fair and square. You snooze, you lose.”

Dirk is trying to stare him down, but Dave just crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall. He’s not budging. Because they both damn well know why Dirk hesitated, why Dirk wasn’t the very first to speak up when normally, he always is. They both know that for a moment, Dirk was thinking of that dumbass guy and his ridiculous shorts and his winsome asshole grin. They both know that even now, he doesn’t really want to do this. And they could both pretend like the really cool dudes they are like this isn’t something they both know, but suddenly Dave doesn’t feel like playing by the rules.

He tilts his shades down, looks directly at Dirk from over the top of them. “I’ve got a lot less to lose, bro. So just... drop it already.”

Dirk looks away. “Asshole.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes that’s what an outrageously awesome and hella sweet guy has to be for the sake of his family.” He reaches out and puts a hand on Dirk’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Don’t worry about it. I think I can deal with one weird alien, alright?”

“Alright. I’ll let the council know.” This time, Dave does look up, as he tries to decipher his uncle’s voice, attempts to figure out if there’s any emotion there at all. He’s pretty sure the man feels very little except for aggressive indifference towards most people, including his family, but he’s pretty certain that there must be actual antipathy toward him in particular - probably because he’d felt it was his ‘duty’ to handle so much of Dave’s education in particular as he grew up. It would be nice if he maybe felt something like frustration at watching him volunteer for this fucked-up mess, letting all his hard work go to waste. Or at least a small measure of schadenfreude at Dave immediately cocking up his life now that he’d freed himself from his influence. It would be nice to feel even further vindicated in how much he goddamn loathes the man.

But there’s nothing. He just meets Dave’s gaze blankly, steadily before leaving the room.

Their mother is crying now, and wraps her arms around Rose, calling her a brave and wonderful girl in a choked-up voice. Rose tenses at first, looks like she’s about to squirm out of the embrace, and Dave isn’t entirely sure that he won’t have some choice words for her later if she does. But then Rose sighs, slowly lifting her arms from her side and gingerly placing them around her mom’s waist. She leans in, and because he’s listening for it, Dave can hear her inhaling to catch the scent of their mother’s perfume. Even under all the booze, it’s always there.

After a moment, Roxy jumps up and joins them, flinging her arms around them both and squeezing them hard. She winks at Dave over Rose’s shoulder, smiling through her tears, and he thinks that neither of them will ever be quite as brave as her. Then he grabs Dirk by the elbow and drags him with him, all but shoving him against the rest of their family before joining in the embrace too. Dirk is a perpetually awkward hugger, but at least he does his best to take part, and right now that’s all that matters.

They’re messed up, but they’re still a family. This isn’t going to change that. He closes his hand around Rose’s, feels her grip it hard, and he knows she’s thinking the same thing. They’re not going to let anything hurt them. If this is the only way to make sure of that, so be it.


	2. First impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go exactly as well as expected when our protagonists meet for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t mention this in the earlier note, but both this and the former chapter were written in the notes application on my iPhone because my computer is on the fritz. I hope you can bear with the typos and potential autocorrect errors which might be the result of this. Thank you.

The finalization of the contract will be made in the settlement at the heart of the human colony. At least the final legal touches to the agreement, as far as Karkat has grasped the whole thing. There will also be some sort of symbolic ritual that signifies the beginning of his ‘marriage’, but that isn’t until a couple of weeks. The humans apparently need to prepare for it? That sounds ominous as fuck, but there isn’t much he can do about it.

A group of humans are standing around outside the building, talking among themselves, even though there is still some daylight lingering in the sky. Diurnal creatures are so weird. Kanaya looks like she wants to linger in the light too, but he grabs her by the wrist and drags her inside. It’s too fucking early in the evening for him to be dealing with this.

During the trip here, Feferi seems to have rallied back to her normal infuriating optimism, and she’s now bouncing around and investigating everything around them, exclaiming in excitement and delight over every primitive little thing she stumbles over. Karkat supposes that it _is_ rather nice to see her being her old self again, even if her old self is kind of incredibly grating when your own nerves are pulled taut and singing a melody shriller than the shrieking of a thousand grubs getting simultaneously culled.

Finding a bench by a window, he curls up there with his arms wrapped around his legs. Outside, a small aircraft of some sort descends from the sky and hovers in front of the entrance. A hatch glides open at the underside, a gleaming ladder extending from it, and on the end of it a female human is nonchalantly perched. It’s the very pale one who appears to be some sort of leader among them; Karkat has seen glimpses of her before. Most recently when she arrived for the peace talks back at base. If he understands it right, then it’s her genetic offspring that will be offered up as a tribute to match Feferi’s selected friends - that is to say, him and Kanaya.

Once she reaches the ground, stepping elegantly off the lowest rung of the ladder and taking a moment to straighten her scarf, she waves up at the open hatch. A moment later, someone lands right next to her on the ground, apparently eschewing the ladder. He straightens up and offers her his arm, which she takes with a smile.

It’s another human, presumably male, and just as pale as her. Karkat thinks he might be younger, but fuck it, he’s no human expert. He’s as tall as the female - pretty tall, that is, for a human - kind of lanky, but with broad shoulders. As the two of them approach the group of other humans waiting for them, he notices that the male human seems to practically be a younger copy of another male, who detaches himself from the group to greet them.

Out of the aircraft hatch drops another human, hanging onto the edge of it for a moment and swinging back and forth, before letting go at the extreme point of the oscillation. She makes a neat somersault in midair and lands with her arms extended and a big smile on her face, before skipping off after the others, her hair bouncing in unruly curls. Behind her, another human uses the sides of the ladder to slide down to the ground. He’s skinnier and a bit taller than the first male, but just like him, he’s wearing black sunglasses that obscure his eyes completely, albeit of a different shape.

He waits there for the final human out of the craft, the only one who appears to have the sense to climb down the ladder in a sedate manner. Possibly because she’s wearing a dress long enough to drag behind her on the ground, though she moves with the same ease as the rest of them. It’s annoying to admit it, but the four of them all seem graceful, powerful and potentially dangerous - especially the last one somehow reminds him of the way Nepeta looks while stalking her prey.

This is it, then. It has to be one of them. Karkat doesn’t even really know how to process it, let alone form an opinion. They’re just so... alien. Hair so pale that it’s almost blinding, weird kind of pink skin, hornless, blunt teeth. Bizarre, bipedal mammals. What is he even supposed to think _apart_ from, ‘wow, those sure are aliens’?

“They are pretty strange creatures, aren’t they?”

Karkat jumps slightly, looking up to see Kanaya leaning over him, watching the new arrivals with a distant expression on her face.

“Yeah. That’s a way of putting it.”

“So would I be right to assume that it is two of the younger looking humans that just arrived who will participate in this ‘marriage’ with us?”

“I guess so.”

“Ah.” She bites her lower lip, the fang causing a very faint green bruise to blossom there for a moment. “It just occurred to me that- I mean, I presume that they chose a male and female also, but it was not in fact made clear just who was going to- That is to say-“

Karkat rolls his eyes. “It’s fine. I get it. I’m not sure why you’re so fucking picky about this, especially when we’re talking about hairless ape aliens, but if it’s important to you then you can have the female one. It’s not like I give one miserable, shivering fuck either way.”

She looks down, cheeks coloring slightly. “Thank you. I confess that I’m not sure why I’m so ‘picky’, as you put it, myself. But I feel like this will be hard enough without having to fight my own preferences - and, I suppose, sense of aesthetics.”

That gets an derisive snort from Karkat, but he nonetheless turns in towards the room. “Hey, Feferi! Stop sniffing the underside of human furniture or whatever idiotic thing you’re doing over there and come here for a second.”

The contingent of high ranking highbloods all turn to glare at him, the runty little mutant blood shamelessly shouting at the heiress, but Karkat lifts his chin and ignores them. He’s not so dumb that he doesn’t know that it’s only due to Feferi’s influence that he hasn’t been culled yet - him and Tavros both - but if they couldn’t touch him before this point then they sure as fuck can’t do anything now. So if they’ve got something they’d like to say, then they’re cordially invited to bend over and choke on his shame globes.

Feferi obediently bounces over, apparently completely oblivious of the wall of disapproval radiating from the highbloods - though she’s probably more aware than she lets on. She usually is.

“What is it, Carpcrab?” He peers past them through the window, and then claps her hands in excitement. “Oooh, they’re here! You know... for aliens, aren’t they kind of handsome?”

Karkat gives her an incredulous look, demonstratively turning his back on the window and its view of the aliens. “Okay, if we can leave your apparent brain aneurism out of this for a second, we’ve actually got something important to talk to you about...”

 

* * *

 

Dave has actually never been inside the recently instated Town Hall. Well, why would he? He’s pretty sure that Town Halls actually only exist so their clock towers can be conspicuous props in iconic 1980’s movies about time travel. He peers around the interior as he trails after his family inside, taking in the highly vaulted ceiling and the cathedral-esque windows. Someone was clearly going for an Olde Worlde feeling, which really isn’t surprising at this point.

Lousy goddamn stupid ‘prince’ duties.

His mom makes a small movement toward her face, indicating that shades ought to be taken off indoors, which both he and Dirk stoically ignore. Of course, she knew they would, and smiles indulgently at their disobedience. They both put up with having their hair ruffled as if they’re still goddamn twelve, although Dirk immediately fixes his hair the moment she lets go. Dave just shakes his head to get his fringe out of his eyes and leaves it at that.

Over on the other side of the room, the troll contingent looms. Really, ‘looms’ is the perfect word for it. It’s mostly those huge ones, a good percentage of them being well over eight feet tall. God, he hopes he’s not going to be married to one of _them_ , that thought is kind of daunting. They look downright menacing where they stand, all exposed fangs, mane-like hair and swelling muscles.

Rose had at some point explained - in excruciating detail - that these are the ones considered ‘highbloods’, which apparently refers to the upper end of the hemospectrum bullshit they’ve got going on. Dave had pointed out, pretty reasonably, that there’s not really an ‘upper end’ to a spectrum, that’s not how those works. Rose said yes, she knew, but for the purpose of understanding troll social order, it helps to think of it in those terms.

There’s a couple of the fishy ones as well, dressed in somewhat fancier clothes in purple tones. Other than that, most of them are dressed in utilitarian black and grey, with little color apart from the strange kind of symbols that they all seem to be wearing. In fact, the only real splash of color-

“There she is,” Rose murmurs softly. “The heiress.”

She sticks out rather a lot, in more ways than one. Most obvious is how the loosely draped fabrics she’s wearing are patterned in a kaleidoscope of colors, with gold glittering at her wrists and ankles, neck and forehead. She’s tall but doesn’t tower quite like the others, and her figure is decidedly softer and more rounded. She’s also smiling widely and apparently genuinely, although the gesture exposes several rows of tiny, razor sharp teeth.

So if that is the heiress, then the two trolls behind her are probably their intended spouses, right?

“Aww, she’s so tall and pretty,” Roxy murmurs next to him, squeezing his wrist encouragingly. “And oh no, help, he’s kind of adorable.”

A fair assessment, really, although that really hasn’t been something Dave had worried about at all. The female troll is borderline statuesque where she stands, dressed in figure-hugging deep red with green accents. She’s easily a couple of inches taller than Dave, her posture absolutely impeccable, and he thinks perhaps she’s just a shade paler than the rest of the trolls. She really is beautiful, but trying to draw a line from that idea to actually _marrying_ her... Yeah, he can’t quite make that thought fit in his head. She looks distant where she stands, undeniably more regal than he thinks he could manage even if he tried to dress the part. The outline of fangs against her lower lip and the curve of her horns only serves to underline how alien she is.

Looking at her is honestly making him all kinds of nervous, so he transfers his gaze to the guy troll instead. It’s... well, it’s borderline disorienting to actually see a troll who is markedly shorter than him at this point. Does that mean he’s ‘lower’ on the spectrum - whatever that entails? His horns aren’t as noticeable either, kind of stunted, and there are no visible fangs. He’s standing with his arms crossed over his skinny chest, face locked in a displeased scowl, and it’s not exactly like Dave feels like he can blame him.

Suddenly he looks up, and for a moment their eyes meet. There are flecks of bright red in his grey irises, and as they stare at each other from across the room, the same color also rises on his cheeks in a surprisingly normal-looking blush.

Well, shit. Poor guy. Rose is going to eat him alive.

“Bro? You’ve got to put this on.” Dirk waves a vaguely collar-like contraption in front of him. Dave makes a face. Right, translators.

They _could_ of course use ordinary human ones, but those are going to need a few solid patches before they translate the strange troll language without too many errors. Right now, they haven’t even been properly programmed with audio translation, so they’d have to keep staring at text on screens while talking to the trolls.

The point is, troll technology is just vastly superior in this aspect, and will allow for smoother interactions. It’s just also that when they’d been described to him, Dave hasn’t liked the sound of it much. They’re kind of... creepy. The collar goes over your head, a small bright light blinking away at your chest, while something that looks like a cross between a crab and a spider on the back of it attaches itself to your spine and plugs itself in. It’s supposed to be fairly painless, but that doesn’t mean it’s not gross.

He does it anyway, because he supposes he doesn’t have much of a choice. It moves like a living thing, fitting itself against his chest under his clothes, and he feels something like a needle prick on the back of his neck. He shivers, trying not to squirm.

“Can everybody understand me now?”

Wow, that’s so weird. His brain is insisting that she’s speaking English, even though he can sort of tell that she isn’t if he concentrates. If he does not, the translation device is doing such a good job at fooling him, he’s even imagining that her words are out of synch with her mouth. Wild.

“Oh, good. I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out the excitement!” The guy behind her lets out a string of waspish little clicks and scraping sounds, which apparently have no human counterparts since even with the translation devices, they’re completely indecipherable. The heiress ignores him. “I’m so glad that we have manateed to come to this solution together, and I hope this means that we can keep working together in a peaceful fashion in the future.” Okay, either the translation is malfunctioning slightly, or this chick just made a really lame pun? Dave also can’t help noticing that some of the highbloods behind her are pulling faces, looking displeased. Some people are apparently not so happy about a peaceful solution. “How _ever_ , before we set the final glubs of our codtract on paper, I’m afraid I have a small charveat!”

Now it’s the people behind Dave that are stirring instead, frowning and mumbling in amongst themselves. The council are technically democratically elected leaders, a group of assorted public officials of varying descriptions, who are supposed to be merely guided in their decisions by experts such as Dave’s mother. It’s just that her considerable influence in particular often causes her will to sway them more directly. He has a feeling that there would be more of an uproar now if she wasn’t staying so calm. She nods at the heiress to proceed, and receives a shark-toothed smile in turn.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing of great garvity! It’s just that since we have agreefed to do this the human way, we only think it’s fair that we get to make a tiny little stipulation concerning the marriage.” She pauses in an encouraging way, apparently waiting for a reaction.

Since no one else appears ready to give their opinion, and since honestly, this affects him a hell of a lot more than them, Dave decides to speak up. “Sure, that sounds reasonable. Shoot.”

She bounces where she stands, making a pleased little sound. “Oh, good! It’s really a pretty inconsequential detail, a matter of preference more than anything else. All we’re really asking is that Kanaya here-“ she gestures at the girl troll next to her, “is paired with the female human, and Karkat with the male.”

More mutters behind them, and the voices really do not sound pleased. Amazing. Living out here definitely _has_ caused people to revert to old-fashioned, not to mention almost completely redundant kinds of thinking. Dave on the other hand has absolutely no idea what to think of it, if he’s expected to protest or what. On one hand he’s almost relieved, because Kanaya is still kind of intimidating. On the other, he’s got no idea if he’s into guys or not - in nineteen years he’s never even contemplated it, which suddenly seems like an oversight. Shit.

Then someone behind him mutters something that makes Dirk’s shoulders tense slightly, and suddenly Dave doesn’t care if he’s into guys. It doesn’t matter. If he’s not, he supposes he’ll just suck dick out of spite - assuming weird aliens even have those.

“Fine by me,” he replies before anyone can manage to make a fuss about it. “Rose?” He doesn’t actually have to ask, because she’s been laughing quietly into her palm since the stipulation was made known. But it only seems polite somehow.

“Quite acceptable. Considering the circumstances, it would be pretty silly of us to refuse.”

“I think perhaps we should consider-“ a council member behind him begins, but he’s cut short.

“Does it matter?” Dave’s uncle sounds bored and impatient. “It’s not like we are trying to unite bloodlines here. The kids are all biologically incompatible anyway, so who gives a shit? Let’s move this along.”

Dave manages to stifle a dry laugh. He still despises the man, but he kind of has a point. And it sure shut the dissenters up.

The trolls meanwhile, now that he turns his attention back to them, are looking positively perplexed. It’s pretty clear that they have _no_ idea why anyone would oppose the idea in the first place, and they’re not having much luck figuring it out. Well, why would aliens have the same kind of hangups around that as humans? Why would even humans in this day and age give a fuck? It’s all pretty goddamn unreasonable.

“Er- ah, yes. Good. That wraps it up, then.” The heiress glances sideways at her friends in confusion, then quickly gathers her composure. “Fintastic! Then we might as well finish up here, and then have some breakfast. Or dinner. Whichever, right?”

 

* * *

 

“So. Hey.”

Shit, this is going to be so uncomfortable. But staying on the other end of the room forever would’ve been even more so, and also maybe a dick move. They’re not going to get anywhere by pretending the other person involved in this mess doesn’t exist.

A little way away, he can already see Rose in animated conversation with her new fiancée. Kanaya no longer looks particularly intimidating or regal, but rather like someone intensely awkward who can’t figure out what to do with her hands while talking. Amazing. That’s Rose for you.

Karkat starts at being addressed, not strange since he’d apparently taken refuge in reading a book. From a brief glance at the cover, Dave could almost believe that he’s reading some kind of troll version of terrible harlequin romance novels, but perhaps he ought to be charitable and not assume. Maybe all troll media accidentally looks like hot garbage to humans, and he’s being culturally insensitive.

“Oh, right. Hi, I guess.” It’s Dave’s turn to flinch slightly, because wow, apparently the guy has very little in the way of an indoor voice. The sullen silence from the earlier negotiations had him fooled. “I guess it’s time for us to act like we totally aren’t going to have to ritually copulate in an attempt to force our people to get along, all while fondly remembering that each side is likely to brutally cull us if this ludicrous spectacle should turn out to not be effective. Did I leave something out?”

Wow. Okay. “Nah, that pretty much covers it.”

“Great. Wonderful. I’m sure this will be a fantastic conversation that neither of us will in any way regret later.” He draws a deep breath, looking a little bit like he’s already regretting his part of the conversation, but he still plunges on. “Your species has some really fucked-up customs.”

“Yeah, I’m not arguing with you.” Dave takes this opportunity to sit down on a chair next to Karkat, because it feels kind of confrontational to hover over him like this. He crosses his arms over the backrest, leaning his chin on them. “I think this is all some incredibly serious nonsense that we’re both being subjected to. That is to say, all four of us. I’d go so far as to say that it’s downright solemn horseshit.”

The troll looks a bit taken aback, as if he’d half expected Dave to try to defend the situation they’re in. “You mean this isn’t usually how humans handle their quadrants?”

“Our... what now?” Oh god, the rest of his life from this point is just going to be more and more weird alien bullshit, isn’t it?

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Karkat buries his face in his hands for a moment. “What I meant is, is this a normal way for humans to find someone to- to mate with?”

It’s not an unreasonable assumption, not in the context, but Dave still snorts quietly in response. “Hell no. I mean, marriages are still pretty common, but usually it’s an entirely voluntary thing from both people involved, and no one risks getting killed at any part in the process. Wild, I know.”

“...What, never? I mean, there are no potential punishments to make sure your coupling is useful to the continuation of your species?”

“What? No.”

Karkat blinks, as if that thought just can’t fit in his head. “None at _all_?”

“No! What the hell, dude? What people do in their own marriages is their business, and no one needs to continue their species unless they want to.” Then Dave hesitates, considering recent developments, and adds: “I guess out here in the colonies, some people are pretty focused on that kind of thing? They might go on and on about everyone’s duty to contribute, shit like that, or give you the good ol’ stink eye if you’re not interested in that kind of thing. But they’re 100% full of it anyway, because thanks to my mom, we don’t even need people to get knocked up or even have partners for new kids to get made. So it’s not a problem.”

“Oh, right. Feferi said something about that ‘biological advantage’ - or as I’d like to call it, ‘shit I absolutely under no circumstances want to hear more about’.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t know what you expect this first conversation to be like, but trust me, me giving you the birds and the bees talk did not figure in even one of my elaborate plans.”

Karkat’s frown actually appears to clear a bit out of sheer bewilderment. “What does your native fucking fauna have to do with anything?”

Dave fights back a terrible urge to laugh. Probably not the best move right now. “Nothing. Figure of speech, which I guess was harder to translate than a lot of shitty nautical puns. Anyway, the point is that our marriage will entail no random threats of death... apart from the whole deal where one or both of us is fucked if our people start fighting. But that’s not normal.”

“Oh.” He worries his lip, and Dave notices that while he doesn’t have fangs like most other trolls he’s seen, his teeth are indeed sharper than his own. Also, his lips are black. “Well, good. I was a bit concerned when the older human male said that thing about us being biologically incompatible, I guess. I hadn’t really considered that in any great detail before this point.”

Dave raises an eyebrow slightly. “What, really? Dude, I’ve been thinking about literally nothing else apart from how our respective anatomies might interact, and what kind of potential crossbreed freak might crawl from the primordial soup we create if we can only find the right scientific means to assist us. You mean you haven’t given it any thought at all? I’m severely disappointed. Clearly our future holy matrimony is doomed to fail.”

He’d tried to make his voice as ridiculously deadpan as possible, but maybe he should’ve known better than to try this particular brand of humor with someone from a completely different culture. Karkat actually physical recoils, a muscle by his eye twitching. “What? Why the actual fuck would I ever think about something like that?!” Especially one which has already come across as a bit neurotic. Shit. Now Karkat’s voice is climbing even further in volume too, and people around are starting to notice. “Is this some kind of twisted shit that humans get off on? Is it? Because let me fucking tell you, just because I was roped into this sick goddamn contract by whatever bullshit political advantage you guys might have on us, you need to know right the fuck now that I’m not interested in-“

“Dude. Dude. Dude! _Dude_!”

Finally, Karkat seems to hear him and stops mid-rant. “ _WHAT_?!”

“It was... It was just a stupid joke, okay? I didn’t mean- Oh fuck.” Dave rubs his forehead, trying to ignore how literally everyone in the room has fallen silent to stare at them. “Let’s just say I’m really sorry, and also an idiot. Like, will you give me enough benefit of the doubt to assume I was probably clinically brain dead when I made that joke, and rather than some sort of perverted asshole I’m actually just a goddamn medical miracle?” A beat. “Please?”

Karkat’s mouth works silently for a moment or two, that bright red color returning once again to his cheeks. Then he groans, burying his face in his hands. A high-pitched, brittle little laugh escapes from between his fingers. “I told you, didn’t I? Didn’t I literally say it just a couple of minutes ago? We were both definitely going to regret this conversation.”

 

* * *

 

“I realize that we are using translators to speak, and that is not the best opportunity to be discussing the finer points of linguistics, but I wonder if you might indulge me nonetheless?” Rose leans her chin in her hand, and Kanaya detects a very strange little smile pulling at her lips. “Do you perhaps have an expression in your language for the situation in which you overhear only a part of a conversation in which you have not participated, and you end up wondering exactly what could have brought it to the point where those words might be uttered in the first place?”

Kanaya watches Karkat slump forward so that his face loudly collides with the table in front of him, while the human called Dave flinches and says nothing. “I’m afraid not - that is, not in the more general context you seem to be implying.” She sighs. “In this particular instance, however, I would probably use the words ‘intensely awkward’.” Now Karkat has piled both his arms on top of his head, as if trying to push it clear through the table with the force of embarrassment alone.

“Quite,” Rose agrees, one eyebrow quirked in apparent amusement. Kanaya grapples for a moment with conflicting impulses, as her wish to stay diplomatic clashes with her need to defend her friend. The latter unsurprisingly wins out. She has always felt like she needs to look out for him, maybe because he tries so hard to look out for everybody else.

“He’s a little bit highly strung,” she explains, fiddling with one of the small implements that look like culling forks, which the humans had used to eat with. She wishes she had her embroidery to occupy herself with while talking. It would be something safe and familiar to look at in between stealing glances of the human girl’s enigmatic expressions. “As you can imagine, all of this came as a shock to us, and perhaps Karkat in particular. He might appear rather... aggressive, but he is actually a fairly sensitive person.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest that the situation in question is only your friend’s fault.” Rose laughs quietly, reaching for a small bag which she had brought with her. A rather fetching accessory, Kanaya is forced to admit. “My brother has many admirable qualities, but an ability to approach matters tactfully is not necessarily one of them. I’m sure he meant well, but his sense of humor can also be a bit... inappropriate.”

“Ah. Perhaps then, with time, the two of them will be able to find some common ground? I have to admit that those traits - that is, tact and an appropriate sense of humor - are prominently among those that Karkat lacks as well.”

“You mean that perhaps they will bond over their mutual inability to communicate sensibly with each other?” Rose halts with her hand on the clasp of the bag, flashing Kanaya a small smile. “Perhaps.”

She finds herself flushing slightly, and wonders how exactly this human has her at such a persistent disadvantage in their conversation. It’s as if everything she says is not entirely sincere, without going so far as to outright insult her with lies. It’s confusing and maddening. Perhaps she can investigate it further by alluding to a similar topic?

“I’m afraid that in the emotional state he is in now, he might confuse your ‘brother’ further.” The brother in question is kind of just sitting there, looking like he wishes he could leave. Since no response seems to be forthcoming from Karkat, he fishes out a small handheld device and starts typing something on it. Perhaps he’s messaging someone? “He’s got a tendency when aggravated - which is, admittedly, fairly often - to use absurdly hyperbolical statements to indicate that he’s feeling the opposite of whatever he’s actually saying. I suppose when interacting with another culture, that might be confusing.”

“Oh, you mean sarcasm? No, I don’t think Dave will have much trouble interpreting what he means. I’d like to venture that his grasp of that noble art form is deeper than that of your average human. You might even refer to a certain branch of that kind of communication as his life’s work, or perhaps more as a sincere spiritual calling.”

“...You are exaggerating your description of your human brother’s habits to make a joke. Am I right?”

“Yes, though not as much as you probably think. And I believe you just used ‘human’ as an adjective to overemphasize the differences between our cultures in a slightly pointed manner?”

“Yes.” Kanaya shifts a bit where she sits, her gaze drifting to the bag which still sits unopened in Rose’s lap. “Does this exaggeration mean that you find me aggravating?”

“Not in particular, no. That sort of joke is something like the foundation on which amicable human relationships are based - though perhaps I am somewhat biased in my assessment, given my family. But now that I think about it, I would venture to guess that the breakdown of communications over there might have been caused by just such an endeavor to establish good rapport, which evidently misfired.” She pauses, and then a slight note of hesitation actually enters her voice. “Did your joke mean that _you_ are aggravated?”

“A little bit,” Kanaya admits. “But I’m suspecting that I might have to learn to come to terms with human insincerity, and perhaps even learn how to reply in the same spirit as it was offered.” She feels like she might actually be able to venture a smile at this point. “I hope you will be patient with me.”

“I will try.” At least this sentiment seems somewhat sincere, as does the returnee smile which accompanies it.

“So, your brother... You think that whatever it was he said to trigger that reaction was an attempt at becoming friends? I don’t wish to cast doubt on your statement, it’s just... perhaps I would like some assurance that- that-“

“That he won’t hurt your friend? That he at least will try hard not to?”

“...Yes.”

“Don’t worry. Like I indicated earlier, while tact might not be his strong suit, by and large my brother is... truly a good person.” Her expression is hard to read; it’s closed, but not in a hostile way. More as if she is subconsciously trying to protect something both fragile and precious. “He doesn’t always give himself the credit he deserves for it, but he is. Both my brothers are notoriously terrible at that. Well, perhaps Dave isn’t quite as bad as Dirk about it, but...” A small smile. “But I digress. What I meant to say is, I don’t want you to worry unduly. Regardless of how they get along in the future, Dave is at least not the sort to go out of his way to hurt anybody. He doesn’t have it in him.”

Kanaya doesn’t even try to hide her sigh of relief. From what she can tell, it would be fairly pointless anyway. “Then perhaps they are both more similar than I thought at first. I have to admit it’s a relief.”

“Isn’t it?” Rose finally snaps her bag open, pulling out what is unmistakably a pair of knitting needles and a half-finished project. “That they both don’t really have that sort of thing in them, I mean. I would hate to have to start a war just because some boy hurt my little brother.”

Kanaya is quiet for a moment, trying to gauge how sincere the human is. But she has a feeling it’s a futile exercise to interpret what Rose just said as some sort of human humor. She is fairly certain she meant every word of it. “...Perhaps now is a good time to talk about crafting instead? I think I would enjoy that more.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”


	3. Quadratic equations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attempt is made to make the very first meeting less awful. John sort of manages to accidentally wingman from somewhere out in space. Gossips gonna gossip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My struggle against my phone’s autocorrect continues. If any apostrophes managed to sneak into Dave’s typing, let the record state that it’s not my fault.
> 
> Also can “gross foot talk” be a content warning? Dave is occasionally A Problem.

TG: john  
TG: john  
TG: ...  
TG: come in egbert  
TG: jesus fuck john please just answer  
TG: i cant deal with this  
TG: i just took such a huge goddamn bite out of my foot i think i might choke on it  
TG: i will be doing nothing for years except hopelessly masticating the remains of one of my extremities  
TG: forced to spend life as a mute as i grind down toenails and callused skin between my teeth  
TG: but at least that will hopefully keep me quiet for a while  
TG: goddamn it john

EB: haha ewwww.  
EB: that is so gross dave!  
EB: but i’m sorry to hear that the meeting with your new fiancée is going poorly.  
EB: assuming that’s what all the foot talk was about, and you weren’t just being weird.

TG: yeah no you got me i was actually just opening up to you about my new foot fetish  
TG: seeing as how you would definitely be the first person id tell about that  
TG: i mean obviously that is super relevant to your interests right

EB: :P

TG: also its fiancé not fiancée

EB: wait, i thought there was supposed to be an extra e at the end if you’re talking about a girl.  
EB: because of the french and their words having sex or something?

TG: yeah thats right the french fuck words  
TG: just straight up shove their filthy sweaty baguettes in any vowel they come across  
TG: grind the consonants down so hard you cant even hear them anymore  
TG: because of all the dicks  
TG: i mean i should know my mother is french  
TG: or part french idk

EB: uhhhh...

TG: i think the word you were looking for was gendered  
TG: also i repeat  
TG: its fiancé not fiancée

EB: wait...!  
EB: you’re telling me the alien you’re supposed to marry is a dude? :o

TG: yeah thats right

EB: oh! but i didn’t think that you were, you know...

TG: oh god dont embarrass me by saying it

EB: a homosexual!  
EB: gosh dave, there is nothing embarrassing about that!  
EB: is that why you didn’t tell me about it?  
EB: but you know i know about dirk and i’m fine with that.  
EB: so there’s no reason for you to keep that a secret. :(

TG: jesus just end me  
TG: john this is not a conversation about my sexuality  
TG: though fyi i dont know what it is ok  
TG: gay straight bi pan poly crypto puppet not a clue  
TG: so no i havent been tragically closeted right up until this point when i suddenly spill my beans to you about how my gay ass longs to lick feet and jam elongated bread into the physical manifestations of language abstractions  
TG: it just so happens that the alien i got engaged to now is a dude and this has nothing to do with my preferences in the matter  
TG: because i dont know what they are  
TG: can we move on from that subject now

EB: okaaaaay. but isn’t that a bit worrying to you?  
EB: i mean you’re supposed to get married to this guy, right? isn’t it kind of a problem if you don’t even know if you’re into guys?  
EB: i know i would be kind of concerned about that.

TG: egbert i am being made to marry this alien who i have never met and do not know at all against my will  
TG: and he is being forced to marry me and feels basically the same way about the situation  
TG: only more so because trolls dont even have marriages  
TG: whether or not he might hypothetically at some point get my dick hard is really not my number one priority right now

EB: ...  
EB: okay, i see your point.  
EB: :/  
EB: i’m sorry dave, that sounds like a really awkward situation.

TG: yeah and i just made it worse  
TG: see my previous rant re sudden podophilia

EB: you didn’t actually say anything weird about feet to him, right?

TG: what  
TG: no  
TG: fuck no

EB: i just thought you might have done it ironically, that’s all. it’s pretty easy to misunderstand when you say things like that.

TG: fuck  
TG: the worst part is that youre not even that far off  
TG: i mean no i didnt actually say anything about feet give me some credit  
TG: but i figured maybe some of my truly choice and advanced irony might  
TG: idk  
TG: make the situation less cringy maybe  
TG: maybe even give us something to laugh or at the very least smile awkwardly about together  
TG: instead he thought i was serious and some sort of disturbing creep  
TG: flew right off the handle as if he was done with it and was moving in with his mom until the handle straightened its shit out  
TG: and after i explained that it was a really goddamn stupid joke i think he got embarrassed about his unrestrained handle gymnastics  
TG: and now he wont talk to me

EB: oh no!  
EB: i’m not really sure what to say, dave. that sounds like an shitty situation to be in, for both you and him.  
EB: i would really like to give you some good and stellar advice, but i’m afraid that this sort of thing really isn’t my area of expertise, sorry.  
EB: and i don’t think unequaled practical japery is going to help you right now.

TG: yeah no i dont think a bucket of whitewash would do anything except make everything exponentially worse  
TG: with my luck it would turn out to be some sort of fucked up metaphor in troll culture or something

EB: that sounds pretty far fetched and totally unrealistic, and i can’t imagine that this will actually be a real thing, haha.  
EB: but i take your meaning. he probably isn’t very receptive to a good chuckle at his own expense if he’s already embarrassed.  
EB: and you sound pretty miserable, which isn’t a good time to venture into a prankster-off!  
EB: so what can i do for you, dave?

TG: just  
TG: i needed someone to talk to thats all  
TG: and it cant be rose because shes already talking to her own alien  
TG: and dirk would feel bad bc im doing this instead of him  
TG: and im not gonna worry roxy more than i have to  
TG: so

EB: awwww.  
EB: well of course, i’m always here to talk to my best friend.

TG: thats just it  
TG: here  
TG: youre kind of all the way over there  
TG: by which i mean off planet  
TG: idek exactly where you are  
TG: but  
TG: do you think you could come visit soon  
TG: i could really use having you around right now

EB: :o!!!  
EB: dave, it really isn’t like you to actually ask me to come or admit you miss me or anything like that.  
EB: now i’m kind of worried about you.

TG: yeah well this whole settle down on a newly colonized planet for a while and take it easy with my family thing kind of backfired  
TG: and not even just because the one asshole family member i wanted to get away from keeps hanging around  
TG: so does that mean youre coming

EB: i’m in the middle of a mission right now, but as soon as i’m done, i will head over there.  
EB: i probably need a holiday after this one anyway, it’s kind of a doozy, hehe.  
EB: speaking of, i should go back to it. sorry!

TG: nah its cool  
TG: thanks for talking to me and probably jeopardizing your mission for the sake of my histrionics i guess

EB: i haven’t jeopardized shit, jackass.  
EB: i’ll tell jade you said hi!

TG: did you tell her about all this

EB: nnnooooo you told me not to

TG: yeah  
TG: right  
TG: i just dont want her to worry about this shit when she has more important stuff to deal with

EB: yeah okay, if you say so. but we both know trying to keep anything from jade is futile.  
EB: anyway, i have to go! say hi to your family from me, will you? and jake and jane too!

TG: will do  
TG: and uh  
TG: thanks

EB: :)

 

* * *

 

When Karkat dares to peek out from under his arms again without feeling like he might literally melt from sheer humiliation, Dave appears to be using some sort of handheld communication device. He thinks halfheartedly about lambasting him for being kind of rude, but considering he’d just given the table a long, firm smooch in lieu of talking to Dave, maybe he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on there. So he watches instead, still slumped over but with enough of a gap between his elbow and wrist to see how the human seems to slowly relax where he sits. His shoulders had lifted into a kind of defensive shrug at the end of their conversation, but now they’re slowly settling back down. A small wrinkle on his pasty forehead slowly clears up and disappears. A couple of times he even looks like he’s on the verge of smiling.

There’s a small sound, probably indicating that the person he’s talking to has logged off, since he turns off the small screen a moment later. Karkat can’t really help being curious, and maybe a nonjudgmental and relaxed conversation between them could make the situation less atrocious. If the can actually manage to have one.

So he uncurls somewhat, rearranging his arms so he’s leaning his head on them instead, as clears his throat a bit awkwardly. “So... was that your moirail? The person you were talking to, I mean.”

Dave frowns, touching the back of his neck briefly as if to check that the translation tick is still fully attached. Why he’d actually want to touch it is anyone’s guess, those things are notoriously unpleasant, and Karkat just tries to pretend like hell like it’s not there. He feels a certain amount of vindication as Dave shudders and jerks his hand away.

“Sorry, I think there just isn’t any kind of human translation of that word you just said. Mow-rail or whatever.”

“Wow, your pronunciation is appalling.” Karkat straightens up a bit, leaning his chin in his hand. He finds himself intrigued despite himself. “A moirail is... shit, how can you not have a word for that? I mean you apparently don’t know what I mean when I say ‘quadrants’ either, but still.” He tries to think, tries to find the right words to explain... tries to NOT think about Gamzee while so doing. The latter fails spectacularly. “A moirail is someone who- I guess you could say they make you whole? They give you what you lack, in a way.”

Dave frowns slightly, but he doesn’t seem like he minds the conversation or anything. More like he’s just trying to figure out what the fuck Karkat means. “That sounds kind of like what we would call ‘soulmates’, I guess? I don’t know. I think I could do with an example here.”

“Okay... say one person is prone to violent episodes, stuff in their head they find hard to deal with, so they’re dangerous. A moirail is someone who grounds them, snaps them out of it. Someone they can always count on to hold them back when they need it.” It stings to talk about, because the words taste like failure. Maybe he would’ve missed it if the topic wasn’t kind of sensitive to him too, but Karkat distinctly notices how Dave’s eyes flicker behind the shades, one hand curling briefly into a fist. There’s something there, something painful, but Karkat sure as fuck doesn’t know enough about humans to figure out what. He should probably steer clear for now. “Or maybe someone has a habit of thinking that they have all the answers, and this leads them to manipulate people ‘for their own good’, a moirail might be someone who is a foil for them, who reminds them that they’re not always right about everything, and that’s okay. Or if someone is just a little bit too eager to either constantly kick the shit out of themselves or lash out at others, a moirail can be the one to make them breathe for a moment and realize they’re being a tool.”

Dave seems to relax gradually as he listens to the other examples, although the last one makes his lips twitch slightly. “Okay. We really don’t have a word for that as a specific kind of relationship. It’s not that I don’t sort of get what you’re talking about, but humans don’t have this one designated person who does this for them, which is how you make it sound.”

“You... don’t?”

“Nah. It’s something you do for the people you care most about, your close friends, your family... you might trust one person more than others to do it, but it’s not an exclusive thing.”

Karkat realizes that his face is once again slowly heating up, and on top of that his mouth is hanging open too. He slams it shut, but immediately opens it again, unable not to ask the question. “You mean... your natural state is just constant pale infidelity?”

Dave’s eyebrows go up. “Infidelity? Wait, are you talking about some sort of romantic relationship here?”

“Well, yes, _obviously_.” Karkat tries very hard not to think about how dumb they both must look, just staring at each other in mounting incredulity. “I said it was a quadrant, didn’t I?”

“Well, I have to say that a.) you didn’t say it so much as you implied it, and b.) remember how I didn’t know what quadrants meant? That didn’t stop being a thing or anything. I still have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”

Karkat makes a tired little sound, rubbing at his eyes for a moment. Even though it’s fully dark outside now, he still feels like he could just curl up somewhere and go to sleep. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels like this will be some perpetual repeating joke on both our behalf for our foreseeable future? It’ll be the shitty goddamn gag that just keeps giving, won’t it? Every time we sort of start to feel that we’re beginning to understand, we’ll just be slapped in the face with exactly how alien we both are to each other, and that neither of us really has a clue what the other is talking about. Fucking _hilarious_.”

“I guess the thought has struck me, yeah.” Dave gets up off his chair and scoots himself onto the table next to Karkat instead, propping his arms behind him and leaning on them. “I mean, we’re kind of this huge, untested diplomatic experiment, right?” He shrugs his thin shoulders, his shirt riding up slightly as he does so. “But then again, I guess it could be interesting? I mean, it sounds pretty sad to say that we’re going into this without any particular expectations, but that’s really just another way of saying that we’re probably not going to let each other down too badly. So we can try to figure out each other’s shit without a lot of pressure on us.”

“...Yeah, that still sounds pretty pathetic to me.”

Was that an actual smile? It was pretty quick, but Karkat could’ve sworn that it was there. “Well, as the old Earth meme poets said in one of their most famous sermons to the masses, we’re going to have to-“ He flicks his sunglasses up and back down again, too quickly for Karkat to get a good look at his eyes, just a brief impression of... red? “-deal with it. Now why don’t you tell me what the fuck ‘quadrants’ is supposed to mean?”

Karkat stares at him for a moment, torn between impulses, but really there is only one possible outcome. “Fine. Okay. I’m going to need something to draw on.”

 

* * *

 

The dinner for the humans present had included wine, which Rose had carefully avoided, knowing full well that she is not genetically disposed to drink alcohol responsibly while still nervous. Which, despite naturally making sure not to show it too much, she still is. She supposes that she might be excused in a situation such as this, even though it still irks her.

She had noticed earlier - not without a touch of pride - that Roxy had removed herself from the high concentration of wine bottles by the impromptu buffet table, and gone to sit in one of the windows with a mug of tea in her hands. She’d been shortly joined by the alien heiress, and the two had started up an apparently amicable conversation. Feeling after a little while that perhaps uninterrupted one-on-one sparring with her intended is a bit intense for a first meeting, Rose suggests to Kanaya that they might go over and join them. She agrees, which is why they all find themselves together when Rose notices that Dave’s conversation with his fiancé appeares to be growing more animated. At least on said fiancé’s part.

“What _can_ they be talking about now?” she muses, slowly tilting her glass of the slightly bitter, minty fruit juice that some of the flora on this planet provides back and forth. The blackish blue liquid contrasts satisfactorily with the faintly pink glass.

Kanaya and Feferi exchange a glance, and they both laugh. “Quadrants,” they respond in unison.

Rose raises her eyebrows, amused. “That was a very quick and unanimous answer.”

Feferi is still just giggling, but Kanaya makes an effort to restrain herself, placing a hand delicately over her mouth. “The list of things which get Karkat quite that intensely involved is relatively short.” She attempts to adopt a serious expression, and doesn’t quite manage it. “He must be pleased to have a whole new audience for his lectures. You could say that his reception among his fellows of late has been growing somewhat... lukewarm.”

Feferi lets out a not very ladylike snort. “Because we’ve only heard it about a thousand times or so! Honestly, he does keep carping on about it whenever someone gives him half a chance.”

It’s truly fascinating, really, the way the translation devices seem to find ways of inserting nautical puns in her speech. Presumably by letting their own brains do the dirty work there. What a dreadful thought. “Hmm. I was of course already fairly read up on the matter, and I did consider imparting some of that knowledge to my brother. But I surmised that he would be reluctant and contrary, and it would only be a frustrating exercise in which he tried to find new ways to make a joke of the whole thing.” She smiles slightly, sipping on her drink. “Just as well, since your friend seems to be enjoying himself.”

“Yeah! Dave looks a bit overwhelmed, but it’s still nice to see them getting along better.” Roxy is crosslegged on the windowsill now, and has taken on the monumental task of braiding Feferi’s potentially infinite supply of hair. The heiress doesn’t seem to mind, and appears to at least be _trying_ to sit obediently still. “I was a bit worried there for a second, thought maybe I’d have to get some backup!” She momentarily frees on hand to pointedly twirl her portable computing device around on its string around her wrist. “But Jade said that Dave was already talking to John about it, so he’d probably get him to relax a bit. Looks like she was right.”

Kanaya sends Rose a mildly quizzical look. “Mutual friends of yours, I guess? Ones who aren’t here?”

“Mm, they’re still working for the same agency which we used to belong to. Well, still belong to, I suppose, though we are currently on extended leave to spend time with our family.” The best part about it is that it is in no way a lie, nor does it sound like one, but leaves out the vulnerable and screwed-up parts. It’s not like any of that is SKAIA’s fault, anyway. “Both Jade and John have always been good at dealing with Dave’s... peculiarities.” As the trolls exchange glances, Rose adds: “In a non-romantic fashion.”

“Well, not entirely,” Roxy points out, lifting some of Feferi’s hair out of the way and pinning it up so that it’ll stay put. “Speaking of which, Jade said she’s pretty sure that Dave made John promise not to tell her what is going on. She said he’s been clumsily dodging questions.” She grins. “Do you think it’s because she’s his ex?”

Rose shakes her head thoughtfully, shifting her position slightly on the low bench. Since Kanaya is perched in the window next to Roxy, it causes Rose’s shoulder to bump against her knee, and she detects a faint flush on the troll’s cheeks. Obviously she’s made some sort of impression already.

“I don’t think so. They didn’t date for all that long, and I got the impression they both felt it wasn’t meant to be when they broke up. So I can’t see why that would affect his decision to try to keep this from her, foolish as it may be.” Honestly, that sounds more like wishful thinking than anything else. Dave knows better than that. “I think he’s just being protective of her. He doesn’t want her to be concerned for his sake. You know how he is. How they both are.”

“...This is what I get for sneaking up on my sisters, is it? Blatant goddamn slander.”

“When you sneak up on others you get to hear the truth about yourself, dear brother.” She treats Dirk to a serene smile as he detaches himself from the shadow of the massive velvet curtains. “If it’s not palatable, I suggest you make your presence known, and we will attempt to spare your feelings.”

“Pretty silly to stand around lurchin in the shadows anyway. You should come join us!” The heiress pats the bench in between herself and Rose, beaming at Dirk. He looks taken aback, for a moment awkwardly unable to fall back on his aloof attitude without coming off as monstrously rude, and so he nods after a moment of hesitation. He sits down on the floor, though, as if trying in that manner to regain his balance somewhat.

“Are we gossiping about Dave and his fiancé, is that what’s happening here?”

“We are,” Roxy confirms, using a clean fork to assist her in french braiding. “Do you have anything to report from all your sneaking around, hmmmm?”

“Yeah, I listened in for a moment, and was privy to an explanation of hate attraction. I watched my brother desperately try to figure out if he was actually being fucked with somehow, and then removed myself like a coward. I’m just saying, some battles a man has to face alone.”

Roxy laughs loudly, and Rose has to cover her mouth for a moment or two to keep her amusement in check. “I’m sorry if this comes off as very culturally insensitive to my newly betrothed and the royalty present. We’re mostly just having fun at our brother’s expense.”

Feferi shrugs, and gets a stern poke in scalp by Roxy for it. “Oops, sorry! Anyway, you don’t have to apologize. We laugh at Karcrab fairly regularly too. He’s pretty funny when he gets all ranty and shouty!”

Kanaya makes an amused little sound, but her expression quickly morphs into curiosity. “So humans do not experience black yearnings?”

“Not the way you do, no. For us, it’s not nearly as neat and tidy. It’s indeed possible for negative emotions to be mixed up in attraction, and perhaps they might even fuel it. But unless there is at least some positive emotion mixed up in there, it will simply be creepy - and even with positive emotions involved, if they don’t outweigh the negative, it’ll probably be unhealthy. I imagine that there are relatively few humans that could maintain that sort of relationship in a nondestructive fashion. Our brains just aren’t made for it.”

“And Dave in particular isn’t.” Roxy frowns slightly, fingers moving in intricate patterns. “A relationship built on negative shit would only hurt him - he’s just not a very aggressive or hard person. He’s actually hella gentle.”

Dirk inclines his head slightly in agreement. “That’s pretty much it. So it probably doesn’t matter how many times your friend describes it, he still won’t really get it. Because it just doesn’t interest him - I’d say it probably makes him uncomfortable. I can see why.”

Rose notes how Kanaya and Feferi exchange another look, the way the former nods almost imperceptibly and the latter smiles. She resolves, for now, not to worry too much about the quadrants on her brother’s behalf. The silent vote of confidence she just witnessed - albeit hard to interpret in any great detail - seems to suggest that it won’t be too much of a problem at present.

As for her own situation... well, who knows? It certainly won’t be boring, at least.

 

* * *

 

The completely reasonable suggestion that Kanaya and Karkat move in with their respective humans while waiting for the ceremony they call a ‘wedding’ is met with resistance from some of the older humans. Kanaya has no idea why this is, other than that they appear to find the idea inappropriate somehow, as if it breaks some form of tradition. Whatever it is, it is treated with impatience and exasperation by the younger humans, as if the notion to them is horribly old-fashioned, but the point is apparently not negotiable. Thus, while the rest of the troll contingent return to their ships, the two of them are instead given separate respite blocks in a newly constructed human hive. To ‘acclimatize’ themselves.

Feferi promises to spend a lot of time there, and though she does so in a light-hearted way, the underlying meaning is pretty clear. ‘I won’t abandon you to be alone among humans’.

They’re also encouraged to try to shift their sleep schedule around a bit, since the upcoming wedding ceremony will take place during daytime. Kanaya doesn’t exactly mind that, since she’s fairly used to being awake during daytime anyway, and she had tried to be optimistic about the proposition. Karkat did not appreciate the optimism - he’d said the last thing he needed was a rainbow drinker bugging him about how being a creature of the day is _so_ great.

Optimistic or not, she nonetheless finds that when she tries to go to bed a couple of hours before sunrise, sleep eludes her. Human beds are unwieldy things, obviously not nearly as pliant as a recuperacoon filled with Sopor Slime, and she finds it hard to find a comfortable position. Her mind keeps racing, and it seems impossible to settle down.

That’s ridiculous; she’s slept in far less hospitable places than this, under far more dire circumstances. They are by all accounts safe here, with nothing to immediately fear. The human hive hasn’t been lived in before, and it’s a bit empty, but it’s reasonably clean and well furnished. The room she’s in is cosy, with little touches suggesting that someone has tried to make it welcoming. The bed smells strange but actually rather nice, like clean fabrics and a faint touch of... herbs? Mysterious, but far from unpleasant.

Yet she can’t sleep.

For a while she occupies herself with some embroidery, and then by reading a book. There is a faint haze of light at the horizon, and she can hear the chattering of early risers among the fauna outside. She really ought to at least get to sleep before sunrise if she wants to match her sleeping habits more to those of the humans. But it eludes her.

Finally she sighs, wraps herself up in a blanket, tucks her book under her arm and pads silently down the hall to Karkat’s room. She’s not surprised to find that there is a light on in there, and it’s with a small sigh of relief that she knocks on the door.

“What?”

“I find myself unable to sleep, and I’m getting restless. Could I perhaps... stay in there with you for a while?”

There is a loud sigh, a thud, impatient footfalls. Karkat opens the door without a word, gestures grumpily for Kanaya to enter. She isn’t surprised to find him reading too, or that he apparently has been fussing with his room before that, cleaning the very faint layer of dust she’d noticed off all surfaces and rearranging his possessions. He’s always been unexpectedly meticulous about his cleaning habits. A trait inherited from his lusus, perhaps? He has always struck her as a fairly fussy creature.

She slips into the bed next to him, takes out her book, and starts reading. They don’t talk, but it’s not necessary. Just knowing someone is there, someone who is going through the very same thing and worrying about a very similar future... that helps. As the chirping of the flying amphibians outside starts up, Kanaya finds that it’s hard to keep her eyes open. They _did_ get up fairly early, and it’s been a long day.

There’s a thud next to her, and she looks up to find that Karkat’s book has slipped from his fingers, and he’s slumped on his side, eyes closed. He always looks so young when he sleeps. She smiles fondly, reaching down to pull up the blanket a bit and tuck it more securely around him. Then she gets up to turn out the slight, returns to her own side of the bed, and drifts off soon thereafter.


	4. The game is afoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juicy, juicy backstory. A bit of meaty world building. Some fairly fibrous exposition. A dash of plot. And the cotton candy of delicious girl talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the tags / warnings, but just in case: Some violence + PTSD coming up.
> 
> Incidentally, fuck writing Terezi’s typing quirk on my phone. So glad I could use a generator to help me, but I might still have slipped up. Apologies.

It’s a familiar scenario. Not that he can recognize where he is, everything is happening too fast, the old disoriented feeling setting in. Shit, this isn’t good. Losing track of where he is, what he’s doing, what his objective is in the middle of battle... it’s dangerous. That’s how people get hurt, _his_ people. Why can’t he remember? All he can hear is the memory of his uncle calmly explaining that what he needs to do is **_take out all potential dangers, focus on the fight, keep your head cool for fuck’s sake._** But Dave can’t keep his head cool and he doesn’t know where he is and he’s _scared shitless._

The air tastes of ozone and blood.

Enemies keep coming at him fast, their features indistinguishable in the hazy air, the light is low save for the eye-searing flashes of plasma bolts. He cycles through the different kinds of ammo on his gun; magnetic, plasma, steel bolt, ionized shotgun, stun; anything that will hold them at bay, but they keep coming. **_Keep your feelings out of it. Fight._ ** Fuck, the space is too damn cramped to fire accurately anyway, he’s losing ground, he’s backed up against a wall.

Somewhere close there’s the dull sound of an explosion, shortly followed by a shockwave that almost knocks him off his feet. John’s voice crackling with static is in his ear, desperate. “Guys, I need help! It’s Jade, I can’t- There’s too much fire, I- Jade? _Jade_!”

His heart is beating too fast, cold sweat drenches his uniform. He can’t get there, he can’t move, he doesn’t even know which direction he ought to be running in. _**Keep your head clear, focus on what’s in front of you, don’t let emotions cloud your judgement**_ \- No. Fuck that. It doesn’t help, it never helped, the memory voice just makes the fear worse, _he can’t breathe_.

Someone grabs his shoulder. He can feel the smooth carbon fiber of the knife slip against the inside of his wrist, into the palm of his hand. **_Eliminate all potential danger._** He turns around and slashes his attacker in one balletic movement, the knife tracing a wide arc in the air, finding the familiar outline of an exposed neck. _**Don’t hesitate.**_ It barely offers any resistance at all. Blood sprays him in the face, he backs away as he tries to clear his vision.

Dirk stares back at him, face paler than it’s ever been before. He opens his mouth, but only blood and spit comes out. It spills down his chin in sticky strings as he collapses to his knees, the impact causing the neck wound to gape wide open like a hideous grin.

Dave can’t feel anything. Not the knife in his hand, not the blood on his face, not the scream tearing at his throat. Nothing.

 

* * *

 

_THUD._

“Horsefeathers!”

Dave sits bolt upright in bed, clutching at the sheets that are hopelessly tangled around his body. They’re drenched in sweat, cling to his skin as he pulls at them in an attempt to free himself. His heart is still pounding, and he has to fight hard against the impulse to hyperventilate, to draw in painfully slow breaths that feel like sandpaper in his throat.

Not this goddamn shit again. The dream is still vivid in his mind, every absurd detail standing out now that he’s awake. It didn’t happen like that. Hell, the explosion and his epic goddamn mid-battle meltdown happened on two separate occasions, two different missions, not even remotely the same locations. Jade is fine now. He knows she’s fine. Dirk-

“Okay, I think I can see what the issue is. Hold still.”

Despite knowing that Dirk is fine, that his dream was just his traumatized brain rehashing old fears and ‘what if’ bullshit, Dave still lurches to his feet at the sound of his voice. He stumbles to the window, desperate despite himself to see his brother, to assure himself that he’s still alive. So he can tell himself that he never hurt him, and he never will.

Unsurprisingly, Dirk is on his knees and tinkering with some detail in Jake’s new robot arm. The latter appears to have been chopping wood, judging by the sturdy chunk of pine balanced on the chopping block, but the axe is currently buried inch deep in the wall of the hen house more than twenty feet away. Now that Dave is listening for it, he can hear some alarmed clucking from inside the small building.

“Yep, still haven’t got the fine motor skills quite right. I need to subtly adjust grip strength in the other direction, and the sensors need some work too.”

“Well, it’s a damn sight better than when I kept breaking everything I gripped, isn’t it?”

“Better, yes. Still not good enough.”

“You’re such a big old perfectionist.” Jake sighs, but still holds his arms still as Dirk does something that makes the fingers twitch, head bowed over his work. After a moment or two, he seems to revisit his words and regret them. “Not that I mean that as any form of criticism, old friend! You know I’m forever chuffed that you’re working so hard on this for my sake, and I know I’m truly lucky to have such a great-“

“Jake. I know.” Dirk doesn’t look up, but he frowns slightly at the hand as it twitches again. “The bad news is that I’m going to need my tools and a more optimal work environment than this to accomplish the task. Why don’t you go back to the workshop, and I’ll meet you there after I’ve finished with the wood?”

Jake looks dejected, shoulders slumping slightly. “Well, frig. If you say so.”

“Hmm?” Dirk starts screwing the terminal on the back of Jake’s lower arm shut, but halts to glance up at him instead. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing. I suppose I’m just- Well, dagnabbit Dirk! I guess I just feel no useless with everyone having to go out of their way for me, and me not even able to perform the simplest tasks in return! Is that really so strange?”

“...You’re still recovering, and your prosthetic isn’t fully functional yet. Other than your carelessness contributing to what happened, these circumstances aren’t your fault by even the widest stretch of imagination.”

“See, you say that, but as you point out yourself, if it wasn’t for my dadblasted foolishness-“

“No, I- Forget what I said.” Dirk’s mouth tightens like it always does when he realizes that he overdid the brusqueness once again. “The point is, you lost an entire limb by doing something heroic, something for which I am personally grateful. Those are objectively speaking conditions that allow for a considerable amount of slack to be extended. No one expects you to immediately be able to do everything you used to.”

Jake hangs his head, letting out a sigh loud enough to be audible even to Dave up on the second floor. “I have to say, I don’t particularly feel like anyone expects much of anything from me at present. I’m holding everybody back, aren’t I - making sure we have to stay on this awkward bloody planet and in this awkward bloody situation?”

Dirk starts closing up the terminal again. “It’s not just you. Others really need this break too - perhaps even more than you.”

“...Well, shucks. You’ve mentioned that before, but I admit I wasn’t the best listener at the time. You wouldn’t care to elaborate, would you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. It’s... complicated.” He tightens the last screw, and then takes Jake’s hand in his, gazing up at him from where he’s still kneeling in front of him. “Will you trust me anyway?”

Jake reddens, looks away. “O-Of course. You know I do.”

Dave grimaces where he stands, backing silently away from the window. The last thing he needs is for Dirk to know that he witnessed that whole wretched exchange. That entire will-they-won’t-they dance is awkward enough without gawking family members, he’s sure - not to mention unbelievably embarrassing for said family members to have to behold.

Anyway, he’s assured himself that he hasn’t actually attempted to decapitate Dirk for real, and the dream is slowly fading into the dark obscurity of previous night terrors. Political debacles that he’s gotten mixed up in aside, he’s on a currently almost excruciatingly safe and boring planet compared to what he’s used to. Even with having trolls for neighbors taken into consideration.

He’s too nauseous to have breakfast yet, but he should at least have a glass of water or something. Stripping off his sodden boxers and tank top, he steps into the hygiene module and lets the misted water, mild chemicals and quick blast of air so its work. It’s always felt to him kind of like getting dry cleaned, not nearly as satisfying as a real shower or bath, but fresh water is too scarce and precious out here still for proper plumbing to be viable. So an indoor bath is a huge hassle. Maybe later on he’ll hike to the salt water springs if he feels like having a proper soak.

As he picks out some clothes to wear, he can’t help feeling like a bit of an asshole for more or less letting Jake think he was the reason that they were all staying out here. He’d been a handy excuse when they first arrived there, just the famous Strider-Lalonde family looking good on pictures with their friend the wounded hero, clearly staying in this dull backwater in solidarity as he recovered. He should’ve remembered that playing that up for the press would make Jake believe it as well, especially since he hadn’t been there when Dave snapped, didn’t know that the situation he’d saved Rose from had been entirely self-inflicted. He’d always been gullible like that.

Jane had probably figured it out, even if she hadn’t been there when it all went down either, and no one who wasn’t directly involved had been told. The point is, she probably knows there’s something they’re all hiding. Might be why she’s been kind of short with most of them recently - and why she’d refused to leave with John and Jade. Maybe she feels like her cousin needs someone around who isn’t keeping secrets from him.

Maybe later on it won’t feel so impossible to tell them about it. At least he hopes so. At any rate, once Jake recovers fully, it definitely won’t be him holding anyone back - not when it’s Dave and Rose who might not be able to leave the planet for the foreseeable future, possibly even forever. He grimaces slightly, taking the stairs down two at a time. It kind of has to be like this, doesn’t it? Since the two of them are the main reason that they’re here in the first place, it really has to be them.

 

* * *

 

 GC: SO

CG: SO WHAT.

GC: SOOOOOOOOO

CG: OH MY GOD.  
CG: CAN WE CUT THE CUTESY BULLSHIT PLEASE?  
CG: MY SLEEP SCHEDULE IS ALL FUCKED UP BECAUSE THESE DIURNAL GLOBEBREATHS WANT US TO MAKE OURSELVES MISERABLE FOR THEIR CONVENIENCE. AND SO I CAN PARTICIPATE IN SOME KIND OF CREEPY ALIEN MATING RITUAL WITH BASICALLY THEIR ENTIRE SETTLEMENT BEARING WITNESS TO MY DEBASEMENT.  
CG: THE POINT IS I AM NOT IN THE FUCKING MOOD TO PLAY COY GAMES WITH A SMUG BLIND GIRL.

GC: WH4T 4R3 TH3Y L1K3?  
GC: TH3 HUM4NS, 1 M34N

CG: AH YES, I CAN SEE YOU ARE DEFINITELY GOING TO ASK SOME RELEVANT QUESTIONS, AND IN NO WAY WASTE MY TIME WITH FRIVOLOUS SHIT.  
CG: THEY’RE SMALL, SQUISHY AND UGLY. THEIR SKIN COMES IN SEVERAL UNAPPEALING COLORS, AND SO DOES THEIR HAIR.  
CG: WHAT DO YOU WANT, AN ANATOMICAL CHART?  
CG: YOU HAVE SEEN HUMANS BEFORE.

GC: NO 1 H4V3N’T >:[

CG: FINE, SMELLED THEM. WHATEVER.

GC: I W4SN’T 4CTUALLY 4SK1NG YOU 4BOUT TH31R 4PP34R4NC3S  
GC: OR 4BOUT HUM4NS 1N G3N3R4L  
GC: 1 W4NT3D TO KNOW 4BOUT TH3 HUM4NS YOU 4R3 GO1NG TO G3T STUCK W1TH OBV1OUSLY

CG: WHY?  
CG: WHY IS IT EVEN RELEVANT WHAT THEY ARE LIKE?  
CG: BESIDES, OUR ROYAL FUCKING HEIRESS IS APPARENTLY INVITING YOU AS GUESTS TO THE WHOLE SCREWED UP “WEDDING” AFFAIR, SO YOU’LL FIND OUT WITHOUT WASTING MY TIME.

GC: C4N’T 4 FR13ND B3 CUR1OUS?  
GC: M4YB3 1 JUST C4R3 4BOUT YOU OR SOM3TH1NG, 3V3R THOUGHT 4BOUT TH4T?  
GC: NOW STOP B31NG D1FF1CULT 4ND JUST T3LL US 4LR34DY >:]

CG: WAIT, “US”?  
CG: FUCKDAMNIT. IS VRISKA THERE?  
CG: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I WOULD TELL YOU ANYTHING WITH HER THERE?  
CG: I DEFINITELY HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN TO SUBJECT MY PERSONAL MISERY TO THE EIGHT-PUPILLED SCRUTINY OF A SOCIOPATHIC BLUEBLOOD.

GC: BL4444RRRGH  
GC: W1LL YOU JUST T3LL US SOM3TH1NG B3FOR3 SH3 M4K3S YOU DO 1T 4NYW4Y?  
GC: 1’M TRY1NG TO M4K3 H3R STOP DO1NG TH4T

CG: WOW, STELLAR MOIRAIL HERE EVERYONE.  
CG: SHE DOESN’T WANT HER PSYCHO MOIRAIL TO CONTROL PEOPLE’S MINDS, SO INSTEAD SHE BLACKMAILS THEM INTO TELLING HER THINGS BY USING HER MIND POWERS AS A THREAT.  
CG: WELL DONE, I CAN SEE THAT YOU HAVE HER PERFECTLY UNDER CONTROL.

GC: BLUUUUUH 1T’S 4 COMPROM1S3 4LR1GHT  
GC: 4ND TH1S W4Y YOU C4N D3C1D3 WH4T TO T3LL US  
GC: 1NS34D OF JUST L3TT1NG US KNOW *3V3RYTH1NG*

CG: FUCKING *FINE*. GREAT. THAT’S REALLY FUCKING GENEROUS OF YOU.  
CG: KANAYA’S HUMAN IS CALLED ROSE AND SHE SEEMS CONCEITED, CUNNING, AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS. SO HEY, BASICALLY JUST HER TYPE, RIGHT?  
CG: SHE USES TOO MANY WORDS AND SHE KIND OF ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE SHE’S PLOTTING SOMETHING. AND I’M NO HUMAN EXPERT OR ANYTHING, BUT I THINK SHE MIGHT ALREADY BE FLIRTING WITH KANAYA. IT’S MORTIFYING AS FUCK TO WATCH, AND IT’S ONLY MADE WORSE BY THE FACT THAT KANAYA DOESN’T SEEM TO MIND.

GC: >:O!!!!  
GC: TH4T 1S TH3 F4C3 1’M M4K1NG TO 1ND1C4T3 HOW SC4ND4L1Z3D 1 4M  
GC: NOW WH4T 4BOUT YOUR HUM4N?

CG: HIS NAME IS DAVE AND HE’S AN IDIOT.  
CG: I AM SURE WE ARE ALL SHOCKED BY THIS TURN OF EVENTS, SEEING AS WE HAVE HAD NO PROOF AT ALL THAT MIGHT SUGGESTS THAT MOST OF THESE ALIENS ARE PRIMITIVE AND BACKWARDS.  
CG: INCLUDING THIS WHOLE ASININE SITUATION.  
CG: HE WEARS SUNGLASSES AT ALL TIMES, HE HAS A SHITTY SENSE OF HUMOR, AND HE FREQUENTLY EMBARRASSES EVERYONE AROUND HIM BY SAYING LITERALLY ANYTHING THAT CROSSES HIS MIND ALOUD.

GC: SO UNL1K3 YOUR OWN FL4WL3SS D1SCR3T1ON 4ND P3RP3TU4L SMOOTHN3SS

CG: HEY FUCK YOU.  
CG: I’M NOT NEARLY AS BAD AS THIS INSUFFERABLE DOUCHEBAG.  
CG: TRUST ME IF YOU MET HIM YOU WOULD AGREE.  
CG: HE’S JUST SO MONUMENTALLY ANNOYING YET PATHETICALLY HARMLESS THAT I AM CLOSE TO VOMITING WITH LUKEWARM RAGE JUST THINKING ABOUT HIM.  
CG: AND HE SEEMS TO GENUINELY THINK HE IS COOL WHEN HE IS JUST NOT.  
CG: AND I KIND OF WISH I COULD HATE HIM BECAUSE MAYBE THAT WOULD MAKE THE WHOLE SITUATION A BIT EASIER TO SWALLOW, EVEN THOUGH HUMANS APPARENTLY DON’T EVEN UNDERSTAND CALIGINOUS ROMANCE? WHATEVER, EVEN IF THEY ARE UNDERDEVELOPED ROMANTICALLY AND IT WAS COMPLETELY UNREQUITED, IT WOULD STILL BE MORE APPROPRIATE TO FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT SOMEONE YOU ARE FORCED TOGETHER WITH, RIGHT?  
CG: BUT UNFORTUNATELY THE WAY HE KEEPS TRIPPING OVER HIS OWN WORDS WHEN HE TRIES TO BE LESS HILARIOUSLY AWKWARD IS ACTUALLY KIND OF ENDEARING.  
CG: WAIT.  
CG: NO.  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: DAMNIT TEREZI DEAL WITH YOUR MOIRAIL, I KNOW SHE MADE ME SAY THAT LAST BIT.

GC: OK  
GC: W41T

CG: FINE.

GC: SORRY 4BOUT TH4T >:/  
GC: SH3 C4N B3 SO STUBBORN WH3N SH3 TH1NKS SH3 1S H3LP1NG  
GC: BUT 4T L34ST SH3 ONLY M4D3 YOU S4Y WH4T YOU W3R3 4LR34DY TH1NK1NG

CG: OKAY BUT CAN WE NOT TALK ABOUT IT?  
CG: IT’S JUST REALLY AMAZINGLY UNCOMFORTABLE AND WEIRD RIGHT NOW, AND I’D LIKE TO KEEP MY FLOUNDERING GODDAMN FEELINGS TO MYSELF FOR A LITTLE WHILE.  
CG: IS THAT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE RESPECTED? I DON’T FEEL LIKE THAT IS TOO FUCKING MUCH TO ASK.

GC: OK F111N3  
GC: BUT  
GC: 1’M GL4D YOU S33M TO TH1NK H3 1S CUT3 4T L34ST >:]  
GC: 1 C4N’T W41T TO H4V3 4 CLOS3R LOOK 4T H1M  
GC: OR R4TH3R... 4 CLOS3R L1CK!!! H3H3H3H3H3

CG: OKAY NO.  
CG: THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE? THIS IS EXACTLY THE SHIT I’M NOT DEALING WITH RIGHT NOW. NOT TODAY.  
CG: BESIDES, I APPARENTLY NEED TO STAND UP AND LET KANAYA MEASURE ME. SHE IS MAKING CLOTHES FOR THE WEDDING AND SHE IS NOT LETTING ME HAVE A SAY IN THIS AT ALL, BECAUSE EVERYONE I KNOW IS SOME KIND OF RAGING SHITSTAIN.  
CG: I’M GUESS I’M GOING TO LOG OFF AND LET THIS INSANE RAINBOW DRINKER MEASURE ME UP FOR MY CORPSE BOX, OOPS, I MEAN RITUALISTIC HUMAN MATING CLOTHES.

GC: YOU GO DO TH4T  
GC: 1 B3T YOU W1LL B3 4DOR4BL3  
GC: SM3LL YOU SOON! >;]

CG: YEAH SURE.  
CG: BYE.

 

* * *

 

“I think it was a kiiiiiiiind of unfair of you to let him blame it on me, you know.” Vriska stops fiddling with her own husktop for a moment, tilting her head back in Terezi’s lap to allow her to look up at her. “I wasn’t even _close_ to his pliable little mind when he showed his hand like that.”

“I know. But he’s so sensitive about everything right now, he wouldn’t have listened to me if I said that.” She leans back a bit, deeply inhaling the way the early dusk colors the wispy clouds in creamy raspberry and flecks of blackcurrant. “I didn’t want to get in an argument with him about it, so I let him have his flimsy little excuse. All three of us knew he was lying, after all.”

Vriska snorts, shaking her head. “I don’t know what Feferi is playing at. I mean strategically, I suppose only one of them is a great loss, but still! Forfeiting your own allies just like that is just so weak. I thought better of her than to let something like this happen.”

Terezi sighs, flicking a finger at her moirail’s forehead. “Sometimes you’ve got to lose some things to win. After all we’ve been through, I would’ve thought you’d know that by now. You can’t just decide that you’re ‘a winner’ and breeze right through everything without ever having to give something up. There’s got to be a price to balance the scales.”

Vriska frowns, not quite managing to toss her head in the position she’s in, so it turns more into something like an irritable shrug. “I know that. But this isn’t even a win, it’s a _stalemate_ \- emphasis on _stale_. We sacrificed a good, really damn hard to kill fighter and I guess also some guy we know, and for _what_?” Her fingers drum irritably on the side of the keyboard. “Just so some wimpy race of aliens will believe that we won’t attack them? Fuck, on this useless little boring rock, who even _cares_? We win nothing by attacking them anyway, so unless you’re a knee jerk dumbass like Eridan, why would you want to?”

Terezi wrinkles her nose a bit. “Unfortunately, plenty of the highbloods and sea dwellers in charge are knee jerk dumbasses. It’s not hard to see why the humans don’t trust us.”

“Right. So they messed up and scared the stupid humans, and the only thing we can do about it is to cart off our friends as hostages? _Screw that_.” Terezi knows what she’s reaching for without turning her nose more in her direction, and is proven right when there’s a loud _CRACK_ of plastic followed by a desolate trickle of water. Addiction really is a powerful thing.

It’s the one way that Vriska really knows how to care about people, she knows that. She turns them into things that are hers in her mind, and then vehemently hoards them the same way she does her treasure. Her moirail, her fussyfangs, her shouty mutant blood. It’s absolutely natural that someone else giving away ‘her’ stuff to placate a group of aliens will rub her the wrong way - and quite frankly, Terezi doesn’t blame her. She doesn’t like this much more than Vriska does, to tell the truth. The way this demand was made by the humans, with no regard for troll culture _or_ their own sacrifices. The way the highbloods had agreed to it, probably because _they_ don’t actually care if Karkat or Kanaya should end up as collateral, and also clearly overruling Feferi’s wishes while so doing. She doesn’t like it at all.

The problem is that it really isn’t Feferi’s fault either. Her position is still a desperately precarious one, regardless of her growing authority. The preference of their shared lusus for the heiress over Her Condescension had ended up shifting the power balance between them, as had the growing affection toward Feferi from the lower blood castes, who see her as their hope for liberation. It had forced the older fuchsia blood to reluctantly treat her heiress as an ally or risk immediate revolution. But to make any decision and actually do any _ruling_ , Feferi still has to work with the blue bloods and up, who remain loyal to the Empress who maintains them as the ruling classes. She can’t simply order them about and ignore their wishes, not without causing the kind of political upheaval that she simply isn’t ready for.

Terezi suspects that Vriska already knows this; it’s just that simply accepting temporary defeat and then waiting around to see what happens next goes against her very nature. Playing a long game has never really been her kind of con, which is why she’s just not a particularly political creature. She’s too impatient about results, too arrogant about her own importance in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, Terezi wouldn’t have her any other way. If it wasn’t for her confidence and rashness to balance her out, she suspects that she’d one day end up with the mind of a bureaucrat, and then she might as well beat herself do death with her own cane. Life wouldn’t be worth living like that.

“An impasse means we haven’t necessarily lost either. We’re still playing.” She grins up at the darkening sky, as if ready to sink all her sharp teeth into its blackberry scented vastness. “It’s just that we’re going to have to hand the ball over to Karkat and Kanaya for a while... and perhaps the humans they marry too. We let other people make their moves first - and if possible, anticipate them. As long as we don’t admit defeat, as long as we don’t fold, we’ll always be able to turn the tables.”

Vriska makes an amused little sound, reaching up and touching her cheek. “Your metaphors are all tangled up, Redglare. What kind of game do you think you’re playing?”

Terezi laughs then, meeting Vriska’s penetrating stare with her blank, blind one. “What games do you think, Mindfang? Wanna guess?”

“Aaaaaaaall of them?”

“ _All_ of them!”

 

* * *

 

 

“Y’know... I was thinking! About the whole moirail thing you guys have.”

Feferi looks up from the jigsaw puzzle she has been gleefully laying for the last twenty minutes, slowly starting to sort out the 5000 pieces of assorted marine flora and fauna. She’d said that she’d never laid a puzzle before, and with her apparently spending a lot of time underwater, Roxy supposes she can see why. All the pieces would just float away, right?

“Water boat it?”

“Well, sometimes that’s kind of what I feel like I’m doing - only for everyone.” She crosses her legs and leans her elbows on her knees. “I’m more or less always calming tits down left and right... which I guess to you sounds suuuuuper slutty, doesn’t it?”

“For a troll it kind of would be - or at the very least their conciliatory solicitations would be seen as shallow and insincere.” Feferi shrugs, and her jewelry jingles faintly. “But for a human it’s different, right? It’s not a roemantic thing for you, so it doesn’t come off as hitting on a lot of people in the same way.”

“Nooooooope. Which is just as well, because some of the calamity mammaries I frequently have to undo belong to my siblings. And, well, for humans that’s kind of a big gross no-no when it comes to romance.”

Feferi tilts her head, the mass of braids Roxy had managed to accomplish rustling like a whole nest full of snakes. “You know, I suppose for a troll I’m pretty unique in that my direct ancestor is still alive, so maybe I ought to understand a bit better what it’s like to have family. Especially since I don’t feel as strong of an urge to immediately kill her as most of my caste do for each other.” She lets out a deep sigh. “But firstly it’s not exactly an affectionate or caring relationship, the way human families mostly are, right?”

“Mostly,” Roxy agrees, trying not to think too hard of the one notable exception in her life. She doesn’t want to sour the whole evening for herself. “Some humans are exceptions to this, though. Cuz they’re just the woooorst.”

“Right. But between us there’s rivalry - I mean, _she_ still wants me dead.” Her cheeks color slightly. “And sometimes, I just feel like I _really hate_ her. Which, ummm...”

“Is super not platonic and non-family-like for you guys,” Roxy supplies. “Yikes! And that’s like... super extra yikes with a side order of hoshit.”

“Gluuuuuub, I know. It’s probably weird, even for us. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that if I ever showed those kind of feelings in frond of her, she would just mock me. She’d think my hatred really juvenile and pathetic, so it’s not like I’ll ever let her know. It’s just a very silly side effect of her being my adversary since bassically forever.”

“Woooow. No offense, but... trolls are totes weird.”

Feferi sticks out her tongue at her, but lets out a small titter. “Says the human. Anyway, you were saying stuff about being the human equiwhalent of a pale village two wheel device, right?”

“El-oh-el... I guess! What I meant to say was, it’s almost a full time job for me cuz there’s always someone who needs me to stop them from having a rack attack. But of course I do it anyway, b’cuz I love them all a lot. And luckily, what with the way humans do this shit, I don’t have to do it alone!”

“Ohhhh. I guess that makes sense? Though it does sound rather scandalous to me!”

“Okay, but for us it’s just logical. Like sometimes someone is just mad flipping their shit, and maybe then it needs two of us, you know? Like... one to hold ‘em and one to sock ‘em!”

“SCAN-DA-SEA-LOUSE.”

“Shushshshshshshhhh you.”

“Doing it for everyone sounds really ex _haust_ ing, though.”

“Sometimes it reeeeally is. Supes exhausting. But like I said, at least I have backup.” Roxy frowns a bit, attaching two puzzle pieces that seem to fit. “I’ll be real with you, it sounds just as exhausting to only have one person whose ass you’re, like, personally and exclusively responsible for calming the eff down? And you can’t even hand them over to someone else if you need a break, because that would be like cheating? I don’t know how you do that, tee bee aitch.”

Feferi’s mouth twists slightly, and she looks away. “I guess you’re right. I’ve only ever had one relationship like that... and it did _not_ go swell. Everyone acted like we were sooo made for each other, but it wasn’t true! It was always me dealing with his dramatics and trying to get him to be less glubbing genocidal all the time, it reely _was_ exhausting. Oh, and then he started waxing red for me, which was disastrous.”

“Naaaah. I mean, that sounds like a huge _NOPE_ right there.” Roxy makes a face. “He kind of sounds like a douche.”

Feferi laughs quietly. “He kind of is. But I also know that our failed relationship wasn’t squall his fault. I mean, it’s normal for one or the other to be more murderous and aggressive, but now I think back, our relationship was horribly one-sided. It was moray less just me calming him down, and then me going about my business as I pleased. I guess I wasn’t ready for anything conciliatory, but I just felt he needed it so badly, I went along with it because I cared about him?” She shrugs. “I mean, he’s still definitely a douche, and I’m better off without him as a moirail. But he’s still my friend, and I hope he can find someone who is more right for him, you know?”

“And maybe one day you’ll find someone who will also hakuna your tatas, and you’ll have two quadrants filled. Just like your matesprit, right?”

“Yeah! Sometimes I’m a little bit envious, because there are ways that a moirail can connect to someone that the matesprit can’t.” She grins. “But then, I also don’t have to deal with it when he gets moody and sour, that’s her job.”

“Plus, you’re totes getting laid.” Roxy rolls her eyes a bit, though she doesn’t really have it in her to speak with too much rankor. “Trust me, always the moirail, never the matesprit isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either! Sometimes you just want someone cute to kiss, yanno?”

“Too glubbin’ true! How-a-boat I try to help you with that, and you try to match me up with a moirail?”

“...Oh. Em. Gee. That’s the best idea _EVAR_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I’m churning these out p quick for someone typing on their phone, because hyperfocusing is one hell of a drug. Let’s see how long that lasts. Oh, and this chapter is very much a “setting the stage” kind of thing, hence no main character interaction. But the next chapter is the wedding, woop woop!


	5. Tiny rebellions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the big day, and everybody is getting ready. This naturally involves threats of violence, passive aggression of the highest level, bickering about fashion (and Troll Jegus), and some last-minute guests crashing the party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a little longer this time bc I’m working RenFaire on weekends and it takes a lot of energy. But hopefully I’ll be able to keep up a reasonably steady output still.
> 
> (Also a minor cw for someone offhandedly mentioning pedophilia / child marriage, and also incest.)

“This is preposterous.”

Dirk glances up, looking in the general direction that Dave is staring in disbelief. “Not to imply that all of it isn’t absolutely ludicrous, but which part did you mean in particular?”

“Just-“ Dave waves a hand in a general exasperated gesture. “The bunting, the flags, the fancy dress, _the goddamn fiddlers_?”

That gets him a shrug from his brother, as they both watch a group of people manhandling some sort of arch woven from greenery past them. “People will welcome more or less any occasion that means they can dress up, make a big deal out of traditions, and not least get atrociously goddamn sloppy drunk. The actual cause of the celebrations don’t matter, strictly speaking.”

“I just don’t see why it’s got to be a big deal in the first place.” Someone seems to be handing out little bubble blowing kits to all the children. Dave nicks one when she walks by, unscrewing the little bottle to have something to do with his nervously fidgeting hands. “I mean shit, maybe it’s just me, but I feel like a wedding is kind of a bit of a travesty when all the parties involved have no choice in the matter.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow, sidestepping two people carrying a giant garland between them. “Didn’t take you for such a romantic, bro.”

“Look, it’s kind of an objective fact that romance as a general rule enters into a wedding somehow. Or at least something slightly more poignant than, ‘he doesn’t seem to actively dislike me anymore’ or ‘fuck it, I guess he could be a lot worse’. I don’t think I’m saying anything too crazy or out there, but if I’m wrong then feel free to bring my unreasonable Bridezilla ass right back to harsh reality. Like, am I talking some kind of sense, or am I throwing a fit because the napkins don’t match the bridesmaids’ dresses? Which one is it?”

“I hear what you’re saying, but I’ve got to point out that history isn’t exactly on your side.” They both watch the tiny bubbles Dave is blowing spiral into the crowd of bustling people. “I mean, shit, the fucking royalty of the ages have gotten married on way flimsier grounds than that. And the people who waved flags and shouted hoorah as they went past - do you think they actually gave even one shit if the people in the fancy carriage liked each other, or were actually siblings, or if the bride was all of twelve years old? Fuck no. All they knew was that maybe they got a half or maybe whole day off working their fingers to the bone.”

Dave sighs, feeling uncomfortably singled out where he stands, as everyone around them keep sneaking glances of him. He’s gotten a fair amount of smiles and genuine congratulations, some pitying looks and lowered voices, and a few people have nudged each other and laughed. It really is as though he’s suddenly become separate from them somehow, as if he’s not just some random bozo in the crowd - albeit a famous bozo - but someone who is meant for a greater destiny or some horseshit like that.

“Yeah. I guess so. Fuck it, maybe I was just holding out hope that humanity has evolved past all that. Or at least that our society had.”

“Not to be an insufferable edgelord and cynical just for the sake of it, but... nah. We’re all still a bunch of superstitious apes pretending like we no longer solve our problems by shit flinging contests.”

“I’m not arguing with you, but that is an absolutely fascinating portrait of humanity. Please tell me more.”

It really is impressive, in a fucked up kind of way, how quickly they both reach for guns that aren’t there, and how synched up they are as they spin and jump back from the voice right by their ears. Like a goddamn circus act, albeit one put together by an antisocial ventriloquist ninja.

The troll girl perched on the low wall behind them cackles, swinging her legs where she sits. There’s something impish about her in general, from the narrow face with the bright red glasses and the crescent moon grin full of sharp teeth, to the gangly body and the long-fingered hands resting on the head of a cane, which she has propped against the ground. Even with her eyes obscured Dave gets a sense of being sized up.

“You react a lot faster than most humans,” she observes, sounding delighted by the revelation. “And you were ready to instantly fight me, too. Not very diplomatic at all... but pretty cool.”

Dirk has relaxed his posture slightly by now, and Dave only realizes that he has not when his brother lightly touches his elbow. It’s a fleeting thing, could easily have been a mistake if it was anyone else, and there is no expression on Dirk’s face - but Dave can still pick up on his concern. Drawing in a carefully measured breath, he allows the tension to slowly seep out of his muscles. Damn, it’s really pretty bad when he’s even more highly strung than his big brother, isn’t it?

“Yeah well, it’s our family tradition to value coolness over pretty much everything else.” Dave manages a reasonably unaffected little shrug. “It’s sort of a cultural thing, so I wouldn’t expect a troll to understand it or anything.”

“No, that sounds highly exotic and I have to say a little bit intriguing.” It’s hard to tell if she’s being teasing because she wants to keep the conversation going, like some sort of vaguely flirty schtick, or if she’s genuinely mocking them. Dave can’t exactly complain about her face being hard to read with the glasses in the way, but he wishes he could get a better read on the tone of her voice too, and on her body language. He can’t help but wonder how well the translation devices pick up nuances as well.

“I don’t know what to tell you, I’m not sure that I can express the essence of such coolness in mere words.” Before corking up the bottle and putting it away, Dave blows a couple of bubbles in her direction. She doesn’t react to them at all until they’re right by her face, when she very suddenly turns slightly to trace their direction, like an animal sniffing the wind. “At least not without getting a bit choked up - and lets be real, with the occasion and everything there will probably be enough emotions flowing free and sentimental chumps left and right being moved to tears without me adding to it.”

“You seriously shouldn’t press a man on his deeply held spiritual beliefs on a day like this.” Dirk of course maintains his stoic level tone, but apparently he’s decided to play along. “It could get embarrassing.”

“Is that so?” The troll girl laughs again, leaning her chin on the handle of her cane. “I’ll be sure to make a note of humans being excessively emotional - perhaps that’s just a trait that comes with having decadent, delicious candy red blood, regardless of species.”

“That was a pretty impressively weird and kind of creepy comment, presumably made with the intent to throw us off.” Dirk inclines his head slightly. “Consider this my acknowledgment of your skill.”

“It’s not my fault if humans have this weird taboo about talking about their blood, but I’ll take it. After all, how could I resist acknowledgement from such a cool dude?”

“The answer is of course that you couldn’t,” Dave supplies helpfully. “We’re all still being tactful and diplomatic as shit up in here, after all.”

This however appears to be the threshold for how much bullshit Dirk is willing to put up with. Too bad, because Dave was kind of starting to have fun. “So, was there anything you wanted besides checking our reflexes and getting schooled on cool? We’re busy people.”

“Well, I _was_ going to ask which one of you is which. Barring some rather tasty differences in coloration, most humans smell the same to me - and the two of you clearly have more than a passing genetic resemblance, making you pretty hard to tell apart.” She scoots off the wall, her body unfolding like a steel trap in reverse. Tall, angular and with the sense of resting tension in every line of her body. “But from hearing you talk and comparing what you say to my sources, I’d say that you-“ The cane suddenly swings up and smacks Dave hard in the shin. “-are the one called Dave, right?”

Dave grimaces, resisting the urge to lean down and rub his smarting leg. “Your sources?”

“Karkat, mostly - but he’s being a pissy little grub about providing details, so I pestered Feferi and Kanaya about it it too.” She shrugs. “They haven’t talked to you as much, but all taken together I had enough information to make an educated guess.”

Well, that should’ve been obvious. Dave isn’t sure how to feel about it, trolls gossiping about him without his knowledge. It’s not exactly strange since he _is_ marrying one of them, but he finds himself feeling a bit sorry for Karkat. It must be awkward to be pressed for information like that, and this girl doesn’t seem like someone who backs off easily.

“Friend of his?” Dirk asks, and Dave is pretty certain that he’s glancing sideways at him.

“You could say that. I try to look out for him, since he’s kind of helpless on his own.”

Well, no point pretending like he isn’t the one she’s looking for, especially with only two options at hand. “So you’ve come to menace me because I’m about to get married to him, is that it? Tell me what will happen if I ever hurt him, that kind of thing?”

“Mostly just to get a good whiff of you before the whole wedding thing.” Her grin grows wider. “But yes, I suppose knowing your scent will also come in handy if I ever have to hunt you down. I’ll just follow that creamy white vanilla with a hint of bright cherry swirl underneath.”

“The whole smelling thing... is that because you’re blind?” Dirk asks bluntly. So he’d noticed too - not that it’s very surprising that he did.

“Wow, that’s not a very sensitive way to ask about my disability,” the alien observes.

Dirk shrugs. “Didn’t really think you’d mind.”

That actually gets a nod of approval. “I really don’t. It just means that my senses are a lot less boring than yours. So don’t take my threat lightly, Dave.”

“Who’s taking anything lightly?” Dave actually has to hold back a smile. To tell the truth, she’s kind of entertaining to talk to. “I’m pretty sure you’ve just referred to my blood in terms of it’s tastiness twice, and I’m damn sure you didn’t hit my shin on accident a moment ago. Consider me briefed on the subject of you being batshit insane and ready to murder me if I hurt your friend, okay?”

“Good! I’m glad we can all agree on this.”

“Terezi? I, uh, was sent to come get you... by which I mean, I suppose, that Vriska said I had to and, um, I didn’t want to argue with her about it.” The troll approaching is having some trouble navigating a wheelchair through the throngs of people. They’re politely stepping aside from him but stay close enough to stare at him, which makes the path narrow and cumbersome, not to mention probably hella awkward.

“Blargh, what does she want now? I can’t imagine it’s starting yet, considering one of the main players is standing right here. That is... unless Dave here is stalling. Are you stalling, Dave?”

“Uh... no. Nope. Just standing around in an unhurried fashion, due to being pretty fucking surplus to requirements still.”

“It’s still almost three hours until it starts,” Dirk clarifies.

The newly arrived troll now has a small human child climbing on the side of his chair, trying to reach one of his frankly enormous horns. He hesitates a bit, then tilts his neck and gently bops the kid on the head with one horn, causing her to giggle. “No, I mean, I already know that. It is just that they, um, wanted to brief us on the ritual or something, maybe? That is what it sounded like to me, uh, before Vriska got impatient and sent me off to look for you. Which is, I guess, why I’m here? To bring you back for the briefing, that is.”

“Ugh fiiine. I was basically done talking to Dave and his genetic ‘sibling’ here... for now.”

“Oh, um. Hello Dave.” He waves a little awkwardly, putting up with the child now basically hanging from his horn. “Hello Sibling.”

“Yeah, that’s my goddamn name alright,” Dirk agrees solemnly. “Well done.”

A distressed father suddenly appears, grabbing his child and backing away quickly, as if worried the guy in the actual wheelchair on a cobblestone street is about to lunge after him. The troll looks concerned, as if not quite sure what just happened, but it bothers him all the same. “Uh, sorry!” he calls after the man and child.

“They can’t understand you, Tavros. Only humans wearing a translation tick like these guys can. To the rest of them, it probably just sounds like barbaric alien chatter.” Terezi sighs, stepping between Dave and Dirk to reach her friend. This time they’re both prepared for it, and manage to block the vicious swipes of her cane with their feet, something that gets another cackle out of her. “We should probably go before we make a scene. Apparently humans are notoriously emotional - I’ve got that from a reliable source.”

“I, well, I think that maybe that is some sort of pointed remark or in-joke I’m not entirely getting, but also I have no real reason to actually refute it, so I think I will not comment on this.” With considerable difficulty in the still dense crowd, Tavros manages to somehow execute a three point turn. “It was nice to meet you, Dave and Sibling.”

“Nice to meet you, humans.” Terezi waves at her over her shoulder. “Good luck during the wedding, Dave. And please remember what I said about hunting you down, okay?”

They stand in silence for a moment, watching the trolls leave, before Dirk seems to snap out of it. “You should probably go and start getting ready too, anyway. Clean yourself up before you get dressed in your best fancy asshole attire, all that shit.”

“If you say so, Sibling.”

“Fuck off.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh. Em. Geeeeeeee. You look so pretty!”

When Rose turns around, Roxy actually has tears in her eyes, and she immediately bustles over to help adjust her veil, dabbing at her face with her own sleeve.

“You still remember the part where this is a rather cynical procedure in which we are all just as much hostages as we are brides or grooms, right?”

“Of course I do, sis! I mean, duh.” Roxy gently adjusts the silk flowers crowning Rose into a more symmetrical position. “But you’re also my sister and it’s your wedding and you’re looking sooooo fucking beautiful, you know? And I kind of hope that even if the whole thing is stupid, you and Kanaya can still be happy together! I mean, you’re getting along well, right? So even if there’s a lot of bullshit, I can’t help feeling kind of emotional, seeing you like this.” She pauses for a moment, as if a thought just struck her. “Mind you, didn’t you once tell me that if you got married, you were gonna wear a suit? What happened with that?”

Rose shrugs, watching herself in the mirror. She’s rather pleased with how dramatically the purple chiffon falls in billowing waves from the fitted bodice, achieving an impression which lands somewhere between a roaring waterfall and grasping tentacles. The shapes of the lace appliqué on the sleeves look vaguely ominous too, even though a closer look reveals them to be nothing more than innocent flowers. For a fairly rushed job, all things considered, she’s impressed by the end result. “Well, the idea was always to oppose tradition one way or other. A suit is an obvious choice, in that it challenges the obligation of femininity - but that is not quite so effective here. In fact in this situation, I feel like I would very much like to underline my femininity instead.”

“Ooooh, I get it! To fuck with those stiffs who seriously think that two women marrying each other is some kind of thing nowadays, right?”

“Precisely.” She tilts her head, noting the way the lilac veil shimmers subtly in red. “And besides, this way it stands out a lot more that I am not wearing white. Even if that is a particularly misinterpreted and misunderstood tradition, with a basis in upper class snobbery rather than true symbolism... erroneously or not, I do not want a single person to think that I’m in any way offering up some sort of symbolic innocence as a sacrifice on the altar of public good. You could say I don’t particularly appreciate being made into a martyr, or the pretense that I’m some sort of clean slate for anyone to make their mark on, regardless of my actual level of sexual experience. That really is a mostly irrelevant footnote in all of this; it has no bearing on the signals a pandering symbol of supposed virtue might send. I refuse to play along with any antiquated pretense that the inherent value I have in this exchange has anything to do with my purity, in conclusion.”

Roxy laughs softly, shaking her head. “Wooow. I think you might be, like, WAY overthinking this as usual, but I admit it’s an elegant way to tell all the humans responsible for this to eff off. The trolls prolly won’t understand it, though.”

“It’s true... and alas, my knowledge of their culture isn’t nearly encyclopedic enough for me to truly reach the appropriately subtle level of passive aggression I wish to achieve.” She sighs loudly and dramatically for effect, exchanging small smiles with Roxy. “So I’ll settle for being dressed in the blood color of their most noble class, save for Her Imperious Condescension and her heiress. Hopefully that will stick in their craw somewhat - or possibly their gills.”

“If anyone could manage to be PA to a buncha aliens with a completely different culture, it’s probably you.” Roxy smiles, holding out a stick of lipstick. Rose twists the base, finding that it’s such a deep purple that it’s almost black. Perfect. “I believe in you.”

“Thank you for your unwavering faith in my pettiness.” She can’t quite enunciate the words right while painting her lips, but judging by Roxy’s giggles she still made herself understood.

“Well you see, I’ve found that when it comes to pointed pettiness and subtle revenge schemes, you’re simply the best there is.”

“True.” Rose caps the lipstick, carefully wiping away a small smudge with a finger. “So in the future I should stick with my tried and tested trademark, and keep my revenge schemes on a small scale, is that what you’re saying?”

There’s an unhappy flicker in Roxy’s bright expression, and Rose immediately regrets her words. In an instant, they have opened a gulf between them, wide enough to accommodate the better part of a solar system. Certainly wide enough that Roxy will never get to her in time. Closing her eyes, she can still see the flickering lights on the display in front of her, the patch of jeweled space wheeling by in the bridge windows. She can smell the acrid smoke spreading through the climate control system, as somewhere at the heart of the ship its motor fused into a white-hot lump, and all its computer banks and control systems succumbed to the rising heat. The steel bulkhead doors sealing off the bridge would last for only so long - but it was long enough for her purposes. The estimated time until complete structural collapse of the ship was about twenty minutes, but E-minus impact was twelve. She remembers thinking that she would accomplish what she came to do, and finding some peace in that thought. Of course, that was before the ship’s radio suddenly burst into life, and Jake was screaming that he was coming to get her out of there. That he was going to save her.

She sighs, shaking her head slightly. “I’m sorry, that was tasteless of me.”

Roxy doesn’t reply at first, just steps up and gently cradles Rose’s face in her hands. She meets her gaze solemnly, a faint glitter of tears still clinging to her long eyelashes. Then she pushes herself up on tiptoes, leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her sister’s forehead. Rose, half expecting some form of well-deserved admission, and certainly not braced for something so gentle, feels her own heart contract painfully. She’d almost made such a terrible mistake.

“I wouldn’t let you do this if I didn’t think you could still be happy somehow. I want you to know that.” She tucks a small wisp of Rose’s hair into place. “I won’t let you do anything like that ever again. Especially not for my sake. Got it?”

It’s hard to remember sometimes, because both she and Dirk try so hard to be on top of everything, to cover every angle, but Roxy really is the most astute thinker among the four of them in a lot of ways. She doesn’t need to fight for it; she takes in the world around her and rolls with the punches it deals out. But that doesn’t mean she can’t take charge. “Got it.”

“Good. Now go out there and marry the fuck out of that alien.”

 

* * *

 

Karkat pulls awkwardly at the collar of the clothes that Kanaya had more or less forced him into. They fit well, he’ll give her that, but they’re a lot more stuffy and ostentatious than anything he’s ever put on his body before. He still hasn’t heard a single reasonable argument for why this wedding nonsense can’t be achieved while still wearing sensible clothes, but honestly he’s tired of fighting about it. He’ll just get this over with and get out of this stupid costume then.

“You look ridiculous,” Sollux supplies helpfully from where he’s sitting, far more reasonably dressed up in the traditional black and mustard garb of his blood caste. There’s also some gold jewelry in his ears to subtly signal his status as the heiress’ matesprit, a detail which Karkat is certain that Feferi insisted on specifically to piss of the highbloods. He can kind of respect that.

“Fuck off, you’re just lucky that Kanaya didn’t have time to make clothes for all of us.” Karkat grimaces at his own reflection, shifting his shoulders a bit. “Then she’d have you dressing ‘appropriately’ too, you know she would.”

“Hey, fuck you, this is perfectly appropriate for an official occasion. The earth human etiquette or whatever states that uniforms and so on are fine.” A lopsided little shrug. “It’s just that you don’t really have a traditional uniform, right?” He snickers, sending Karkat a sly sideways look. “Unless you count righteous leggings, of course.”

“Shhhhhhhhut up. Holy shit, can you not?” Karkat shudders. “Every time anyone talks about all that, I start feeling like there’s a drone standing right behind me, culling fork at the ready, okay? It’s bad for my fucking health, so cut it out already you dripping sack of liquid feces.”

“Yep, that sure sounds like a dignified and reasonable response to finding proof that your ancestor was a legend,” Sollux snorts. “I think you should try being a little more pathetic about it, I’m sure you could manage if you really put in the effort.”

Karkat looks down at the hairbrush he’d just picked up, seriously considering flinging it in Sollux’ smug asshole face. Then he feels a gentle nudge against his leg, and looks down to see where Gamzee is sprawled on the floor, grinning up at him. He’d kept banging his horns on the ceiling even while walking hunched over, and human furniture creaked ominously under him, so the floor was really the best place for him.

“Hey, why you gotta be all up and fighting each other on a motherfucking fine day like this?” He nudges Karkat’s leg again, and Karkat finds himself lowering the hairbrush. He resolutely ignores how Sollux, on the periphery of his vision, pointedly makes a diamond shape with his fingers.

“Yeah, you’re right. You’re- I should calm down.” He sighs, putting down the brush with a thud. “I’m just uncomfortable and warm in these stupid clothes.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that my man, but I gotta tell you, you’re all looking really motherfucking fancy like that.” Gamzee is pretty pointedly not in anything traditional for his caste, and Karkat feels like him not looking appropriate is a cheap price to pay for that. “What’s that crinkly noise at your neck called?”

“This? It’s a cravat. It was the least obnoxious thing I could have around my neck, so.” He fusses with it slightly, glaring at the bright red jewel in the middle of it. “I’m really not fucking sure about this pin, though.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, KK.” Sollux rolls his eyes at him. “Your eye color will be completely red in just a few months anyway. What’s the point in pretending? Look, she even embroidered your sign on your cuffs in your stupid flipping grey, so you might as well show a little goddamn backbone and wear the pin.”

Karkat pulls a face at him, but doesn’t really object. He supposes that in a way it can be an act of rebellion, for once not hiding his mutant blood color, on this day when they’re making a show of exactly how expendable they think he is. And maybe, also, that some of them know the stories and still fear him? He’s not sure that is true, but it’s a nice thought. “Fine. The fucking cravat would probably look even dumber if I took it out anyway.” There’d an awkward pause, then Karkat lets out an irate sigh. “Well? Are we leaving or what?”

Sollux nods and gets to his feet, crossing the room in long, quick strides and flinging the door open ahead of him without even touching it. Gamzee unfolds slowly from the floor, careful not to knock anything over with his ludicrously  overdimensioned goddamn limbs. As he follows Karkat toward the door, for a moment he rests his hand gently on the small of his back, and once again he feels the pressure of unspoken words tie up his throat neatly. He made his cocoon, he knows, and now he has no choice but to engulf himself in its mucus. He just wishes there was something he could say that would make things less awkward and wistful for both of them.

He clears his throat, determined to at least say _something_ when-

_BOOM._

At first he thinks it’s a thunderclap, but the sky outside the window is a clear pale blue that stretches all the way to the hazy coppery glow of the desert horizon. Then the hulking shape of a space craft slowly comes into view, blotting out the glare of the sun above. Otherwise it would probably blend in pretty well with the sky, being picked out in light azure and blinding white, with a vaguely flowerlike emblem stamped on the hull. The sound they heard must’ve been the ship descending fast through the atmosphere, displacing the air in its passage. Now that Karkat is looking, he can see the flags and decorations outside whipping around in a sudden wind, and the tent where the wedding is to be held is shifting and billowing slightly too.

“What the fuck?”

They rush downstairs, where people have already congregated in worried groups, staring upward at the newly arrived ship. Karkat looks around in search of anyone who seems to have some kind of grip on the situation, and sees Dave stroll out until he’s right below the now static space ship. He tilts his head back, hands nonchalantly in the pockets of his suit pants, and appears to be waiting for something, looking as cool and relaxed as you please. What an annoying fuck.

“So,” Karkat grabs his elbow and tugs at it to get his attention, “is this supposed to be happening? What the shit is this ship doing here?”

“Oh, this?” Dave shrugs slightly, and the studied laid back attitude is seriously starting to get on Karkat’s nerves. “Just wedding guests arriving late. Don’t worry, the ship will clear out soon.” A glowing replica of the ship’s emblem appears on the ground in front of them, and Dave takes a step back, pulling Karkat with him. “Teleport gate. Touching the edges while it’s active isn’t wise.”

“Yeah, alright, I know how a fucking tramsportalizer works, you condescending nookhead.” Karkat rolls his eyes, watching as the glowing symbol contracts and grows, contracts and grows, contracts and... and then, with a sound like drone wings encountering a steel propeller, something comes through. Two figures are outlined in the bright flash left by the disappearing circle. A moment later there is an even louder boom as the ship exits the atmosphere again, causing the air to rush back into the space it left. It’s loud enough that Karkat claps his hands over his ears, and he has to blink away tears as the wind whips up a cloud of dust around where they stand. So at first all sound is muted, the figures in front of him indistinct before they resolve themselves into more recognizable shapes.

The first is definitely human, wearing a bright blue uniform with a couple of medals attached to it, looking windswept and stupidly cheerful all at the same time. The other is... mostly human, he thinks? At first he thinks she’s got horns, but they look more like very strange ears which appear to be made out of metal. Even in the bright sunlight, he can also tell that her eyes are in fact glowing bright green, and there are similar glows visible through the black textile of her uniform all over her body. Some extensive cybernetic enhancements, clearly.

He removes his hands from his ears just in time to catch: “-aw man, no, I’ve written such a _great_ speech for later! Trust me, it’s going to rock.”

“Yeah, that’s why I invited you to my wedding. So you can embarrass the shit out of me in front of everyone. I’m so glad you figured out my humiliation kink just in time for a public occasion that will involve members of my family. Sweet.”

The girl laughs. “All that weird stuff aside, I’m pretty sure that’s what friends are for. Hi Dave, it’s so nice to see you again.” She hugs him at the same time as the other newcomer slings an arm around Karkat’s stiff, unresisting shoulders.

“And you’re the alien who is going to marry my best friend, right? Feline in a vehicle - whoops, I meant Karkat, hee hee!” Karkat finds himself herded back toward the rest of the crowd, too overwhelmed at the moment to do anything else. “Sorry about arriving late, we were kind of busy until just now. I’m John, by the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this chapter was the wedding, but in fact it turns out it was the wedding preparations. Don’t blame me, it’s not like I know what I’m doing here. And the next one will DEFINITELY be the wedding.


	6. ~ATH do us part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When life gives you lemons, and those lemons are the day of your awkward as fuck wedding to an almost stranger, you might as well roll with it - and also not settle for some half-arsed kiss.
> 
> Yep, this metaphor made perfect sense. Nailed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the actual wedding chapter, woop woop! Which means the party + wedding night will follow next \o/ 
> 
> (Also heads up, I updated the tags again with the latest chapter, but this chapter has a more detailed description of a suicide attempt + suicidal thoughts, and also a some more reflections on mental illness.)

“A little bit on the heavy-handed side, don’t you think?” The words would probably hold more weight if Dave couldn’t see that Jane is only barely holding back a smile as she embraces Jade in greeting. “Maybe we’ve all spent a bit too long with Lalondes and Striders? If we don’t watch out, we’ll never be able to make an entrance without a lot of hullabaloo.”

“They _are_ a bit infectious, it’s true.” Jade grins, proving that she can be plenty infectious too, since Jane can’t help laughing in return. “But the person responsible for the mode of our arrival _is_ technically kind of a Strider.”

Jane looks bewildered. “I beg your pardon, but I thought we had all of them right here?”

“Yeah, you practically can’t move for atrociously attractive and laid back guys here,” Dirk remarks dryly. “But I think she was talking about the ship’s computer. Am I right?”

“Well, you would know, seeing as how he’s sort of you,” Jade laughs.

“Sort of... but not really at this point.”

Jane rolls her eyes. “Really! I’m still not sure if installing that capricious computer program into the ship’s main terminal was such a wise move. No offense, Dirk, but it’s kind of a handful.”

Dirk looks uncomfortable, fixing his gaze on some point far away. “If you’re the preacher, Jane, then I’m the entirety of the dedicated choir that turns up every Sunday, knows all your best material, and is improvising musical agreement after every other word. But I had limited options at the time.”

Jane looks like she’s about to ask what exactly he means, and Dave isn’t sure he can cope with them having that discussion right now. Because if Dirk is forced to admit that the android host for his computer brain clone had been very suddenly ‘killed’ back then, Jane is bound to wonder how that happened. Today of all days, that is just about the last thing he thinks he can deal with.

Which is why he feels ready to sag to his knees in relief when she’s interrupted.

“Okay, you know what? I’m just about done with this. I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but can we _please_ go through the fucking human greeting protocol at any point which is _not now_? Is that too much to ask?” Right, Karkat. John had kind of dragged him along with them into the cluster of humans, and he’d been standing there looking increasingly uncomfortable ever since. Apparently they’d just reached the end of his fairly short fuse. “I mean, I realize I’m only one of the main participants in this bizarre and primitive ritual that we’re all about to partake in, not to mention a major diplomatic contract being finalized, but sure, if you feel like your chit-chatting about unimportant bullshit is somehow more pertinent, then feel free to stand around out here idly scratching your globes or whatever the human equivalent is. But I’m going inside and getting this over with.”

Dave is aware that he doesn’t exactly have any other options, but at this point he finds himself a bit more okay with the idea of kissing him later.

“Oh, hehe, right.” John scratches his head a bit sheepishly, grinning. “I suppose we kind of have a wedding to go to, huh?”

“One point goes to the John human for having the basic perception of someone whose head isn’t completely lodged in his own spinal crevice. Well done, John human.” Karkat spins around, glaring at Dave for a moment before suddenly thrusting his hand out in his direction. “Well, are you coming? Not that I have any say in it, but apparently I can’t go through with this merry fuckcircus without you.”

It feels unimaginably strange to realize that he’s getting married to this guy pretty damn soon, and yet when he takes Karkat’s offered hand in his, that actually constitutes as the first time they have intentionally touched each other. His skin feels different, definitely not softer but perhaps... slicker somehow? There’s definitely less friction than he’d expected. It’s definitely tougher, though. His hand is smaller than Dave’s, yet the grasp is incredibly firm - the internal structure seems different somehow too, although Dave is really not sure exactly how. It would be kind of weird to squeeze his hand harder still just to get a feel for his bones.

Rose has told him that the higher on the hemospectrum a troll is, the colder their blood runs. Karkat feels like he’s running a fever.

The troll quickly averts his gaze and simply drags him along, and Dave is pretty fine with letting it happen. At this point, just going with shit seems to be the only viable option. They’ve had a number of awkward meetings in between their first catastrophic interaction and this day, trying hamfistedly to get to know each other in a span that they were both aware was too short to really make any progress. The pressure on them both to try to get closer and find something to bond over had only increased their situational social incompetence, and most of their exchanges had tended toward the uneasy, clumsy and occasionally plain cryptic.

In a way, that pressure has now let up. There is no way, now, to save their wedding from being this phenomenally weird and awkward spectacle happening between people who are mostly strangers. They can stop worrying about that now, stop trying to fix it somehow, and just make the best of it. That thought is actually pretty goddamn liberating.

So as they storm hand in hand toward the platform at the center of the enormous tent where the ceremony will be held, Dave is surprised to find himself smiling. Everything is pretty much strange and pointless bullshit in his life at this point, and right now it feels like a welcome change. He speeds up a bit, catches up with Karkat, and then overtakes him, so that he is now the one pulling them both alone. The troll stares at him like he’s trying to figure out if Dave has lost it - Dave wouldn’t rule it out - and then seems to decide that why the fuck not. He speeds up too, until the two of them are racing each other up toward the makeshift altar, still without letting go of each others’ hands.

Once they get there they’re both out of breath, have to bend over and try to remember how to breathe properly. The officiant is kind of staring at them, perplexed, but they pay her no mind, nor the guests that have started to take their places.

“This... was really... fucking... stupid,” Karkat opines the moment he’s able to talk at all.

“Tell me... about it,” Dave huffs, and then attempts to straighten up a bit, brush some dust off his suit and straighten the tie. Deciding against wearing his uniform today hadn’t been hard; there are too many things that happened while wearing it that he just can’t deal with yet. Besides, he’s got plenty of sweet suits. “We seem to have lost the brides.”

“Yeah, well...” Karkat stands up a bit straighter too, peering back from where they came in. Dave has to admit that the fancy clothes look pretty nice on him, even if he keeps fidgeting as if uncomfortable. “The way Kanaya will be dressed, she probably needs to walk a bit slower. I mean, I’ve seen her fight in a long skirt, but still...”

“Well, let’s just sit down and wait for them here. Come on. We might as well be comfortable while we wait for those flighty broads.” Remembering that his left hand is still firmly clutched in Karkat’s, he gives it a light tug toward the edge of the platform, gently guiding him along until he sits down next to him. He’s feeling kind of punch drunk, like the force of everything happening so fast has been slamming his face repeatedly against the wall, and maybe that’s why he disentangles his hand from Karkat’s only to sling an arm around his skinny shoulders instead. Karkat tenses up for a moment, and then lets out a defeated sigh, tentatively tilting his head sideways until it leans against Dave’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he says, to no one in particular it seems. “Fine.”

 

* * *

 

After receiving more ‘assistance’ while getting changed than she actually felt she needed, Kanaya is carefully making her way down the stairs when she catches the tail end of Karkat chewing out a group of humans and then grabbing Dave by the hand, towing him away. She glances sideways at Nepeta, who valiantly pretends not to have noticed, instead pointing toward the group of humans.

“AC thinks she might have espied the prey her pack is stalking.”

It takes a moment to adjust her brain to Channel Leijon, but it helps that Rose turns around and smiles at her in that moment. “Ah. Yes. That is indeed the person we were looking for. Thank you, Nepeta.”

“That’s the human you’re going to be stuck with? She doesn’t look like much, does she? That’s pretty lame.” Vriska, of course in her full ridiculous piratesque regalia, leans on the stair rail and studiously cleans her nails. “But at least if you need to ditch her, that little body wouldn’t be hard to hide.”

It’s pretty annoying, having nursed some particularly wounded flushed feelings for someone for sweeps before finally getting over it, to then find the person acting weirdly possessive over you all of a sudden. Kanaya digs a couple of nails into the palm of her hand and tries to count quietly under her breath before replying. She would prefer not to snap over this, not when Vriska only reacts to things like that as if it’s a challenge. “I do not believe that to be the purpose of this exercise, nor would I suggest that you dismiss her capabilities quite so quickly. After spending some time with her, I have certainly noticed that her witty and demure mannerisms are just that. Mannerisms, which I suspect she may discard if need be. There is certainly more to her than that.”

“Reeeeeeeeally? You know, Kanaya, I can’t tell if you just confessed that you’re waxing red for her already, or that you’re scared of her.” Vriska looks amused, but there’s an annoyed little catch to the way she flips her hair. “Either way, I’d say that’s pretty fast. I guess that means I’m at least a bit impressed with her... and a bit disappointed in you!”

Before Kanaya can decide whether or not to take off her shoe and see if she can actually knock Vriska clean off the stairs, Feferi intervenes. “Oh, will you clam it? Come on, you should go down and meet your human ‘bride’!”

“Yes! Let’s go talk to the humans!” Aradia is hovering slightly behind them, presumably to get a better view. “There are a lot of really interesting things about their culture which I would really love to ask them all about.”

Kanaya sends her a suspicious sideways look. “Do any of these questions you’re about to ask have anything to do with death, perhaps? Maybe even extensively so?”

“...Just one or two.”

Nepeta giggles. “AC’s sense of smell is not perhaps as keen as that of Purrope, but she still thinks that she might be able to smell a big, fat lie like that one.”

Aradia makes a small face. “Well, maybe more than two. Is that so bad?”

“Not as such, but I would suggest that you attempt to practice some moderation.” Kanaya sighs. “Just please try not to unnerve or scare the aliens too bad, is really what I’m asking. Since they don’t know you, they might just take your enthusiasm for such matters as something a bit more sinister, perhaps even threatening. Especially from an alien girl who forgets to touch the ground she’s walking on.”

That earns her a small eye roll, but Aradia still pats her shoulder in a friendly manner, smiling. “You shouldn’t worry too much. I’ve got this feeling that everything will be okay.” This time it’s more of a nudge than a pat. “Now go talk to your human.”

They stay put behind her, leaving her to descend the rest of the way alone. This pretty much draws everyone’s eyes to her, which is rather unsettling, and she tries to keep her eyes on Rose to keep her mind off it. Whatever confused feelings she might have for the person directly tied to her in this mess - trepidation, confusion, a little awe, frustration, upheaval, and a not inconsiderable amount of flustered admiration - she still prefers them to the sudden intense scrutiny of a lot of humans which she has little to no relation to as of yet.

“Ooooooh. She’s so _pretty_!” That hushed and still very audible whisper comes from a human girl that Kanaya to the best of her knowledge has never seen at all. She _is_ human, isn’t she? Yes, those just appear to be technological enhancements, possibly to compensate for some injury just as with that one male human. Quite extensive injury, if that is the case.

Flustered, she feels her grip on her phosphorescence slip slightly, the glow of her skin slowly lighting up the hallway. A hush falls around her, and she is pretty sure she might just die of embarrassment soon. But Rose’s small smile is unaffected as she glides over to greet her. “I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite this luminous.” She holds up her hand as Kanaya opens her mouth, smile widening. “It wasn’t in any way meant as criticism. You do look lovely.”

Kanaya fiddles a little bit with her gloves, nervously following the contour of her own sign which she has embroidered there. “I was under the impression that the occasion traditionally calls for a white dress. I wasn’t mistaken, was I?”

“Traditionally yes, and it’s a wonderful dress too. You made this, yes?”

“...Yes.”

“Then consider me thoroughly impressed. But as for me... I was just never all that fond of complying too slavishly to tradition. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Ah? No, no, that is completely fine of course.” Kanaya laughs nervously, gesturing at herself. “But I’m glad I asked you what sort of accent colors to use, so that I may at least match you with my accessories and make-up.”

Rose looks amused at that, but not unkindly so. “Yes, I did notice. Your attention to this kind of detail astounds me yet again. I believe I have a lot to learn.”

It’s exactly that kind of statement which is still a source of frustration for her, because she still doesn’t know enough of human culture to know if this was a kind of jab at her fussiness or a teasing way to express genuine admiration... or possibly both? Humans are so confusing. But there are people watching, friends whom she does not wish to worry, and notably one person who cannot be allowed to see her back down. Getting flustered here just won’t do. “I believe perhaps the finer points of my instructions for you will have to wait until later. We have a rather important matter to attend to, do we not?”

There is actually a faint flush on Rose’s cheeks there for a moment, the closest she has surely ever gotten to the short end of the antagonism stick in one of these exchanges, which she follows with a half smile. “Oh, well done,” she murmurs as she takes Kanaya’s arm, staring to lead her towards the door. “I will look forward to it.”

 

* * *

 

It’s difficult to focus on the actual words for any length of time, mostly because Karkat still doesn’t really understand the point of this whole spectacle. Not the peace treaty part of it, of course; even if he doesn’t like it, he can sort of see what purpose they serve in this convoluted mess of a situation. Thinking of himself as a kind of potentially very expendable hostage is depressingly easy. No, he just can’t quite wrap his mind around this whole ‘marriage’ business in itself.

It’s been explained to him in different ways over the course of the previous weeks. Feferi had said it appeared to be a way of preventing red infidelity and outlining rules for interaction between matesprits. Kanaya explained it as a way of securing a cohesive household to care for human wrigglers, since apparently they were dependent on adult humans to survive, and a sensible way of combining your resources. Rose had gone on about the implications in human society of combining one’s families, both in the past and present, as well as creating an independent family unit which was separate from that of your human parents, and also the finer points of economic benefits and social significance, and on and on, until Karkat considered gnawing off his own leg and throwing it as a distraction while he made his escape. Roxy said that it was an amazing excuse to have a great, super fancy party, and also a way to make all your friends give you expensive shit.

When he finally asked Dave, he’d shrugged kind of awkwardly and said that nowadays, it was just supposed to be something people did for each other. Something that made them feel that they’d made a commitment to how they felt about each other, or that made some people feel like their love was more real than before. It was just supposed to be a gesture, really, like a grander version of writing a shitty poem or buying an expensive necklace. Sure, there was legally binding stuff involved, but it wasn’t really any different from the sort of agreement you could make with any cohabitant, regardless of if you ever got naked with them or not.

The important part could be boiled down to, ‘until further notice, I will be yours and yours alone, and that’s pretty much how I like it’.

There had been an awkward silence then, both of them staring out at the rangy flying mammals wheeling far overhead. Karkat had squinted so hard in the light earlier, Dave had lent him a spare pair of shades. “So that is obviously a lot of stuff that doesn’t apply to our situation,” Karkat has said.

“Nah,” Dave had replied. “But I thought you ought to know what it’s really supposed to be like.”

So now that he stands there, with everything too damn hot and bright around him even with the tent blocking out the sun at least a bit, he doesn’t feel like it’s too strange if the words of the ceremony are getting away from him a bit. The ones about unity, faithfulness and family just sound like another way of laying down obscure-ass rules, and the ones about love, compromise and devotion just sound kind of fake, considering the situation.

It had also been mentioned to him that you could add an optional side of religion to the whole spiel if you feel like it, but that both Rose and Dave had been pretty damn set against it. That’s a relief, at least. He’d always viewed religion as yet another snobbish highblood fancy, and he certainly has no interest of involving any _human_ gods in his life.

Suddenly, Dave is nudging him lightly in the ribs. He glares up at him, annoyed at having his train of thought thoroughly derailed. “What?” he murmurs, and honestly doesn’t care that his voice nevertheless carries to those around them as well.

“The nice lady asked us a question,” Dave replies smoothly, nodding towards the officiant.

Oh shit. Right. “I do,” he manages to say through clenched teeth, even as he can feel an inexorable wave of heat rising on his cheeks. Dave echoes the words only a second after. They’re more in synch at the second ‘I do’, and by the time they reach the ‘we do’s, the whole thing flows smoothly. The questions still feel inaccessible and abstract, however. Loving and cherishing isn’t exactly a part of it, acting as becomes spouses seems like an obscure request in context, and forsaking all others sounds like a cruel fucking joke.

Fuck him, they’re going to have to have a talk about that, aren’t they? That’s going to be so damn awkward, and Karkat thinks that perhaps he prefers to consider all that later. He’s got enough on his think pan as it is.

The officiant turns to Rose and Kanaya, and the whole procedure repeats with them, in a similarly self-conscious and contrived fashion. Rose is wearing a faint smile, as if she just spotted the joke, but her left hand is clenched pretty tight. Kanaya enunciates each word as carefully as always, and still seems to stumble slightly on them. Next to Karkat, Dave shifts slowly from one foot to the other, and then back.

Next is the weird symbolism with the giving of rings, right? He hasn’t even seen the damn things, is only vaguely aware that Rose had handled the specifics of that, with a bit of input from Kanaya. Considering how they’re both dressed now - all that over-the-top seadweller purple on Rose and the figure-hugging white lace on Kanaya - he can only hope that it’s not something that will make him look like a try-hard idiot.

As it turns out, though, the rings are very simple. Just a band of matte black metal with some fairly simple decoration. He’s not entirely surprised to find his sign carved into the one he’s supposed to hand to Dave, glossy against the somber surface, with two bright red stones set in the loops. He tenses slightly at the color, but then notices that the rings Kanaya and Rose are holding don’t have green stones in the loop of her sign. Instead it’s the same purple as Rose’s eyes. Dave raises his eyebrows, looking down at the ring he’s holding.

“Of course she went with our dumbass genetically modified eyes. What a perfect symbol for our crazy family and the over-the-top scientific mumbo-jumbo that binds us together.”

“I figured that you’d appreciate it,” Rose says airily. “And since the troll signs are tied to their caste and origin, I thought there was a nice sort of symmetry there.”

Karkat sees Kanaya’s eyes flicker to meet his for a moment, the almost imperceptible shake of her head which signals that she hasn’t revealed what his sign is supposed to stand for in particular. The caste marker of those who have none. The sign of the Signless.

Well, good. The less people who know, the better. It’s not like he knows what the fuck to do with that piece of information, other than to sharpen his paranoia to an even more penetrative degree than before. He really doesn’t need the humans to know.

The wedding officiant clears her throat and smiles a bit, asks if they’re ready to exchange the rings. Right, that’s what the whole point of this was. Karkat somehow manages heroically not to mess up the words in the whole, ‘With this ring’ litany, _or_ to add any profanities to it. It strikes him that unless all of the humans are wearing translation ticks, this part must be complete nonsense to most of them. Well, whatever. They’re just going to have to assume that he’s repeating the words and not just mumbling some particularly fetid slam poetry.

Sliding the ring onto Dave’s finger feels like a strangely intimate gesture, kind of like brushing someone’s hair or doing up their shirt for them. He wonders if it feels the same to Dave, and if that’s why he keeps his eyes cast down as he takes Karkat’s hand in his, or if he’s just focusing on not dropping the thing. He holds onto his hand even after he’s done, looking like he’s working himself up to something. Right, fuckdamnit, he knows which part comes next. After the rather short spiel about pronouncing them husbands and wives, respectively, there’s that last public humiliation to deal with. The kissing. In front of all of these unrelated assholes, and also unfortunately literally all of his friends.

Right then Karkat decides that the last thing he’s going to do is just stand there and let it happen to him. Not on top of everything else they’re putting him through. No. Fuck that in particular. The last thing he’s going to put up with is just standing there like a hapless tool while a nervous human tries to make the ignominy as brief as possible.

So as soon as they’re told that they’re allowed to kiss their spouses, Karkat’s hand shoots up, twists itself in Dave’s tie, and yanks him forcibly downward until their faces are an inch apart. He glares at him, right into those bright red eyes since his stupid goddamn shades that he can’t take off even for this have slipped down so they’re dangling under his chin now. “Come on, Dave. I’m waiting.”

Looking stunned and dazed, the human leans in towards him, and Karkat closes his half of the distance in turn. He hears Roxy sigh and then blow her nose. He hears Dave’s mother sob discreetly into a handkerchief. He hears someone laugh, and he’s willing to bet it’s the idiot John human. Then he hears nothing but his own heart, as the strangeness of the moment catches up and blindsides him completely. Dave’s lips are soft, his skin slightly cool, his teeth blunt but not unpleasant as they scrape slightly against his lower lip. He tastes slightly salty. One of his hands is tangled in Karkat’s hair now, the other resting gently against his cheek. His breath flutters unsteadily against his skin. Oh.

Then it’s over, and all the color and light and noise around them comes back all at once, as people in the audience cheer and there’s music coming from somewhere. Dave rights his shades with a faint flush on his face, which makes the strange little speckles on his nose and cheekbones stand out more. His upper lip looks slightly bruised, and Karkat realizes that his own teeth probably did that.

Behind him, Kanaya is blushing so deeply that she’s practically bright green, and Rose looks pleased with herself. Karkat really doesn’t want to know what his own face looks like.

Dave tugs at his hand, once again wearing one of his infuriatingly inscrutable expressions. “Come on, theres a party waiting for us. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink right about now.”

 

* * *

 

As they stand by the door and accept everyone’s congratulations, Rose can’t help but feel strangely detached from events. She examines the cause of the feeling clinically, knows that psychologically speaking it does make sense, but it doesn’t make the experience any less surreal.

The fact is, if not for an incredibly improbable rescue, she would be dead by now. She had intended to die, and she’s still not sure if it had been necessarily a reflection of how she had valued her own life, or if it simply had been a byproduct of her not inconsiderable rage at the time. Or maybe those two things are connected somehow, considering how angry she had allowed herself to become to further her goals. She supposes that kind of thing is what happens when you stare into oblivion and wait for it to blink first.

It’s a kind of disease, she knows that, and she has many words for it. It’s just that she seldom lets others classify it from a more objective standpoint. She just can’t help viewing any well-intended incursion into her mind as anything short of a challenge, and an invitation to play tiresome mind games which she refuses to allow herself to lose. It’s stupid, but it’s as much a feature as it is a bug.

The plan in itself hadn’t been to die, that was merely a side effect which she didn’t mind. She had made it almost impossible for herself to survive, created a trap for herself so that she would not waver in her quest for revenge. Sabotaged the ship thoroughly, deactivated the teleport’s auto function, made sure her friends were far away...

(But not sure enough.)

It had all been rather clinical, as she’d known she would need to put her life in extreme danger if she was going to succeed. And she didn’t want anyone she knew to do _exactly_  what Jake had done in order to save her. Better to simply sacrifice her own life than to risk theirs, that’s what she had thought. She’d thought she had made rescue impossible for that reason, but she had been proven wrong.

Maybe she had wanted to live? If she didn’t, wouldn’t she have simply destroyed the teleport completely instead of simply making it impossible to operate from inside? She had told herself at the time that it was the quickest way, but really, time hadn’t mattered all that much.

In truth, she had made it so that the teleport was quite functional still, if you didn’t mind sacrificing an arm to operate it. Turns out Jake had been a lot braver than she ever gave him credit for. Either that, or he’d had no idea that it would take his arm off. She’s never going to ask him that; she has no qualms about being cruel, but not needlessly.

Is she suppose to feel something poignant now? She ought to be dead, and here she is in a beautiful dress, completely unharmed. The sun is bright, there is laughter in the air, and someone is playing a fiddle as if their life depends on it. She just married an intelligent, interesting woman, not to mention embroiled herself completely in the middle of a political situation which is promising to be fascinating. Objectively speaking, life is good.

But even if the wedding itself wasn’t a sham, albeit a rather pleasant one, she’s not sure that she would be able to arrive at some sort of revelation now. She can picture it, but not feel it: Something about how she’d been meant to live all along, that she’d almost lost her chance at happiness... along those rather trite and maudlin lines, certainly.

What she’d felt while talking to Roxy is different. For the sake of those she loves, she knows the whole affair was a miscalculation. She now views it as a transgression towards them which she won’t ever repeat again. She is too well aware of the cost of failure now, and so survival must be her priority.

For her own sake... that will take time. Perhaps she will never quite manage it; she is certainly both self-aware as well as erudite enough to know that no cure will be perfect. What she needs isn’t a miracle, or a revelation. She just needs things to hold on to, from one day to the next, and perhaps in that aspect days like this are actually helpful after all. As imperfect as they are... and as corny as that sounds.

Roxy smears dissolved mascara on he cheek in a tight hug. Her mother envelops her and Dave in a cloud of perfume and martini smell as she kisses their cheeks, laughing as she wipes Roxy’s mascara off her lips. Dave squeezes her hand in his, as if to say, ‘I’m okay’, and she’s glad. Their uncle is nowhere to be seen, which is honestly just as well - both for Dave’s sake, and because Rose couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t try to puncture his foot with her stiletto heels. Dirk gives her one of his monumentally awkward hugs, calls her ‘lil sis’, and for once she doesn’t mind... that much.

Jake gives her a one-armed hug, letting the mechanical arm stay at his side, and then does his hokey finger guns and wink thing at her. He doesn’t say anything about what happened, and she thinks that even if he knew she’d done that to herself, he probably still wouldn’t. He’s a far too generous soul at times.

John practically knocks her off her feet with his enthusiasm and babbling, and she finds herself actually batting at him with her flowers in an attempt to settle him down. As usual Jane shows more restraint than her brother, but there is unspoken forgiveness in her tight hug and hastily wiped eyes - whatever secrets Rose might keep, Jane’s expression seems to say, at the end of the day they are still friends.

Then Jade grabs her from behind and picks her clean off the floor, swinging her around in a circle in those now inhumanly strong arms. She sees Kanaya’s laughing face as she whirls by, and laughs too, even as she affectionately threatens Jade with gruesome retribution if she doesn’t let go. She does, but just before she whispers five words in Rose’s ear. In a way, they’re both the reason why she will strive to survive, and the reason she cannot entirely regret the way things turned out.

“ _Thank you for saving me_.”

She had done what she did for a reason. But she has plenty of reasons to stay alive, too.


	7. Great life choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unrequited feelings are discussed, the grooms make some terrible decisions regarding sophorific substances, and cultural misunderstanding is the gift that keeps giving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a bit longer to write, but also it’s a longer chapter \o/

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

The troll girl on the seat next to it looks up, blinks slowly as if coming back from far-away thoughts. Then she glances sideways, pursing her lips. “Purrobably not? I, um... sort of sat down all the way over here so I could get some time to meowself.”

“Oh!” Jane flushes, having at this point already sat down next to her, and makes a motion to gather up her dress again and get up. “I’m so sorry. I’ll leave you be, then.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to.” The troll girl’s lips quirk up a bit as she hurriedly shakes her head. “I mostly meant from my furiends.” She sighs quietly, curling her arms around her leg and leaning her chin on her knee. “They mean well, of course, but I just can’t _stand_ having them walk on featherbeast shells around me any longer. I needed to get away for a bit.”

Frowning slightly, Jane debates with herself if it would be too forward of her to ask a complete stranger what’s wrong. But honestly the girl looks dejected enough, sitting crouched on the chair with her dress hopelessly rumpled and her strange little blue hat slipping sideways on her head, that it’s kind of hard to resist meddling a bit. So she smiles, nodding slowly. “You could say I know a little bit what that’s like. Sometimes when people are trying to spare your feelings, it just ends up reminding you what’s wrong over and over, right?”

She knows she judged the situation rightly when the troll lights up, her expression shifting quickly to relief. “Yes! That’s excatly what it’s like. They try so hard not to talk about anything that they think would upset me, that every conversation gets stilted and kind of apawllingly stupid after a while, you know?” She sighs, rolling her olive, catlike eyes. “Especially when they think almost efurrything is going to upset me right now.”

Jane nods sympathetically, leaning back a bit in her chair. “Oh yes, I can tell we’ve struggled with some similar kinds of conundra, then. It’s all very well that people try to show consideration and kindness, but there comes a point when it just becomes intolerably overbearing!” She smiles a bit ruefully. “A girl can have a bit too much of being handled with silken gloves, and certainly too much insipid tact.”

That begets another eye roll, and something that is somewhere between a growl and a hiss. “Yeeessssss!” She snorts. “It’s especially dumb when it comes from people who otherwise aren’t known for pussyfooting around. It’s so awkward to watch them try, because they really just end up bumbling around like big, silly herdbeasts.”

Jane puts a hand over her mouth, trying somewhat unsuccessfully not to laugh too loudly. “Oh yes. I’m familiar with _that_ particular display!” A moment of hesitation, then she attempts a softer, slightly more nervous smile. “So in the interest of not tiptoeing around the subject any longer, because that would be pretty foolish in the wake of this conversation... which one of them is it?”

The girl makes a small face, shoulders slumping slightly, but Jane thinks she can still detect some sort of relief in her demeanor. She thinks she understands why; sometimes it’s just nice to talk to someone who isn’t involved in whatever mess you happen to be neck deep in. “It’s him.” There’s only really one ‘he’ it can be, all things considered, but she still gestures to Dave’s new husband, who appears to be bickering with a troll at least twice his size about something. She ducks her head, and a deep green flush rises on her cheeks, matching her eyes. “It’s been him for a very, veeeery long while.”

Jane hums softly. “So long that sometimes, you can’t really tell WHY it is you’re feeling like you do anymore, and you wonder if it’s just habit by now. Heavens, there are plenty of guys out there! But then...”

The troll’s face betrays her surprise, as she ends up filling in the rest of the sentence. “...but then he does something so sweet, or so brave, or so funny, it’s just hard _not_ to feel like that.” There’s an embarrassed pause, and then they both laugh sheepishly. “It’s strange, I’ve never really talked to anyone who gets this before.” She makes an exasperated little sound. “Then again, I’ve mostly talked to my moirail about it, and he doesn’t understand at _all_. He listens, of course, and he tries to be helpful, but he just can’t see why I don’t even try to do anything about it. He’s even tried to encougar me to! Even though he doesn’t apurrove.”

Jane isn’t quite sure how to comment on that, because apart from the basics, the complications of troll romance are a completely closed book to her. It’s a bit strange to imagine someone talking to a platonic-romantic partner about the problems with a prospective sexual-romantic partner - but maybe that’s because she herself is just a straightforward, rather traditional person when it comes to romance.

There is however still a pretty obvious question there to ask. “Well, not to be pushy, but why don’t you do anything about it?” Just in case, she hurriedly adds: “Whatever the reason, I’m pretty certain I can empathize with it.”

The girl lets out a quiet sigh, eyes lingering for a moment on the object of their conversation, before hurriedly slipping away. “Well, there isn’t really any point.” Jane recognizes that protective flatness of tone, but it’s coming from someone who isn’t all that good at covering up her emotions, and so it just sounds kind of dejected. “When I was younger, I used to think he had no idea at all, and I was being all kinds of sneakretive in keeping it from him, because I was just too shy to talk about it.”

Now Jane can sort of already see where this is going, because at every part of their conversation, the troll girl’s face has been more or less an open book. Even so, she doesn’t interrupt, but makes a soft little sound of encouragement instead.

“Only... I guess I’m actually not very good at being fur-tive at all.” She grimaces ruefully, scratching the base of one horn. “I started to notice after a while that he got more and more self-conscious while talking to me, and he wouldn’t actually _avoid_ me, but there were certain subjects he’d stalk in circles around every time. If I brought them up, even tangentailly, I could tell it made him uncomfortable.”

“Oh gosh.” She’s not sure what the troll protocol is, but Jane still reaches out an arm and gives the other girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. It seems like it’s not ill-received, since the troll leans a bit against her hand. “I’m sorry. That’s an unfortunate situation.”

“It’s not his fault if he doesn’t feel that way,” she says in a small voice, as if she’s used to defending this point. Jane offers no opposition, only gives her shoulder another squeeze, and that seems to help a bit. “But I don’t see why I need to talk to him about it, not when it’s so pawtently transpurrent that he doesn’t want to. I think he feels bad enough about it already, and that is definitely _not_ the way I want him to pity me.”

That’s a strange what of putting it, but Jane will just assume it’s some cultural difference. “It a maddening dilemma. Not having your feelings noticed is frustrating, but exchanging that for the object of your affections just feeling kind of bad for you his hardly an advantageous trade.”

“Definitely not.” She kicks the leg of the chair with the heel of one dangling leg. Jane had noticed that most of the troll girls were in practical flat shoes in one way or another. This girl appears to be wearing fuzzy slippers with her pretty green dress. “And it’s only made worse beclaws I’m not sure he understands that I know that he knows. Sometimes it’s annoying, because it feels like he thinks I’m stupid. But...” She shakes her head with a sad little twist to her mouth. “He may not seem like it, but he’s nicer than that. I think he’s just always thought of me as naive and a bit childish... and I suspect he doesn’t want my feelings to be hurt, so he hopes I don’t know. Or purrtends like he can’t tell.” She suddenly laughs, flapping her hands a bit at her sides. “Mrrrr, it’s complicatted!”

“Affairs of the heart usually are,” Jane agrees, allowing herself a quiet sigh. The troll girl sits up a bit straighter, like a cat who just spotted something moving.

“Sooo... I haven’t bored you too much, just talking and talking about meowself?”

“Oh no, that’s quite alright. I hope getting to air it out helped a bit.”

“I think it did.” She tilts her head solemnly. “So... is it the same for you? I mean-“ She gestures in the direction of where Rose and her bride are dancing, and then over to where Dave appears to be upending the last of a bottle of wine in a glass.

“What? Oh, good grief...!” Jane finds her face growing hotter, and she fiddles a bit with the shoulders of her dress. “I suppose the answer is both no and yes. As in, no, I certainly have no such feelings for either Rose or Dave, thankfully. If anything, because Roxy was my very first friend, they became every bit as much part of my family as my brother is, in a sense. Even if...” She lets the sentence die with a sigh; she doesn’t want to sound bitter. _Even if they don’t always seem to feel the same_. It stings a bit still, but the Strider-Lalondes have always been prone to closing ranks in times of stress, and sometimes they don’t quite realize who they’re shutting out.

“Buuuuut...?” The troll girl prompts, not exactly pushing, but perhaps pulling gently at the implication Jane left hanging. She gives in, because it’s easier to think about that right now.

“But I suppose I’m in a similar position in a way. I have feelings for a certain person, but I have reasons not to do anything about it.”

“They don’t feel the same way about you?”

“Probably not.” Jane sighs. “That’s not really the problem, though. Maybe if I’d properly said something, he could’ve developed feelings like that for me. I don’t know.” She frowns slightly, watching Jake trying to adjust his necktie from across the square where the festivities are held. After a few false starts with the robotic arm, during which he clearly grasps the knot too hard, Dirk wordlessly reaches out and does it for him. “The problem is that someone else also has feelings for him. Someone I care dearly about.”

“Ohhh. He likes them better?”

“Again, I’m not sure I would put it that way. I just don’t want it to come down to him having to choose between us.”

The troll nods slowly, then grins a bit apologetically. “I’m not sure I’d be as unselfish as you about it. I think if I thought there was a chance he’d still pick me, I’d fight anyone purrsuing Karkitty with tooth and claw.”

“Oh, I really, _really_ wouldn’t say that I’m being unselfish or particularly noble about all of this.” Jane laughs, but it’s a fairly brittle little sound. “Back when I was a bit younger, when I first found out that he was my rival, I was quite prepared to fight him for the guy we both liked. He probably felt the same, because slowly but surely he all but stopped talking to me, and I to him, and we pretended like it had nothing to do with him... but of course it did.”

The troll girl has her arms around both her legs now and sits facing her, her expression rapt. It’s pretty strange, telling anyone outside their little group about it all... but perhaps it’s actually long overdue? Perhaps having any friend that wasn’t so deeply involved herself would have saved Jane a lot of grief back then?

“This all happened over the course of almost two years, both of us drifting apart in that uneasy fashion while waiting to make our move, but constantly finding ourselves at an impasse. Then, a bit more than a year ago...” Her gaze drifts over to Jade, who is in the middle of the temporary dance floor, dancing with the troll in the wheelchair. Her cousin and her dance partner are moving in wide, sweeping circles that look potentially dangerous to anyone standing too close. “A friend of mine... got in an accident. There was a fire.” She looks down at her own right leg - the dress isn’t quite long enough to hide the mass of scars. “I was closest, and I’m- I’m the one with medic training, you see? So I ran into that fire to try to save her - but she was too hurt, I couldn’t move her. All I could do was shield her with my body.”

She takes a deep breath, banishes the smell of her own flesh burning, Jade’s blood, singed hair. The troll girl’s eyes are wide, her mouth slightly open. “Anyway, long story short, my rival saved us both from there. And as he was helping me limp away from the scene, I thought... well, how _stupid_ I’d been! There he was, one of my best friends, someone who had just saved my life... and we’d almost let our feelings for a boy turn us into enemies!”

“Oh no. You’re right... I guess that would’ve been sad.” The troll frowns, glancing in the direction of Dave, where he sits slumped on the ground and gazing up at the suspended canopy above. “I guess it’s easier when the one you think of as competition is someone you don’t really know.”

“You can say that again.” Jane shrugs slightly, watching Roxy urge Jake and Dirk toward the dance floor, both of them looking seriously awkward about it, but neither of them able to say no to her. “Anyway, we talked about it, apologized to each other, promised we’d stay friends. But I kept thinking...” She sighs heavily. “I thought, if competing over the attention of a boy nearly killed our friendship, if it ever came down for him to choose between us... regardless of whom he choose, I didn’t think our friendship would survive it.”

The troll’s expression slowly resolves into understanding, and quite spontaneously she reaches out and gives her a quick hug. It comes as a surprise, but Jane finds that it’s not an unwelcome one. There is something quite immediately endearing about this girl. “You said you weren’t being noble, but I don’t think that’s true. I think that’s something only a very strong and generous purrson would do.”

“Well, I was just being practical.” She dabs a bit at the corner of her eye, offering the other girl a watery smile. “The boy I like is my cousin - well, second cousin. I suppose that doesn’t really mean anything to a troll?”

“Umm... I don’t even know what those words mean.”

“Well, we’re genetically related, but not so closely that it’s all that weird for me to have feelings for him.” She tries to save her mascara with the tips of her fingers, and the troll helpfully pulls off her hat and hands it to her, apparently to wipe the corners of her eyes with. She doesn’t have the heart to object. “But close enough that I can sort of make it easier for myself by thinking of him as my family, I guess? It’s at least a lie I can make myself believe... and I know Dirk would never be able to do anything like that. Not because he doesn’t value our friendship, he does, but he just... can’t. Even if he tried. He’s just notoriously bad at knowing what to do with his own feelings, poor dear.”

“I, um, think I understand? At least as much as it’s pawsible for me to. For a troll, the closest thing would probably be trying to move this boy into anothfur quadrant, start something pale or ashen with him maybe. Caliginous would be bad in this situation, I think, beclaws it would be likely to lead to vacillation.” She suddenly giggles. “I sound just like Karkat now. I promise I won’t chew your ear off about the quadrants and how to solve all your romance troubles.” She makes an amused little trilling sound. “Honestly, he’s pretty good at pawing through other people’s problems, seeing what’s so obvious from outside, but when it comes to his own, he’s just as dumb as everybody else.” And more quietly: “Just like me.”

The troll shakes her head slowly, glancing at Karkat on the other side of the square, who seems a little bit unsteady on his feet. Suddenly overbalancing, he ends up practically falling into the lap of his much larger friend, who laughs and ruffles his hair as Karkat swears half-heartedly at him.

On the edge of the dance floor, Jake and Dirk are shuffling their way through a slow dance. Dirk, who always looks like he’s made of liquid in battle, who can run up walls and dash around like lightning, seems to have forgotten how to not move like a robot. Jake keeps tripping over his own as well as Dirk’s feet, and Jane can tell even from over that he’s babbling nervously.

Shifting her gaze again, Jane notices that Dave’s glass is once again magically full. Crap, where is her brother? She’ll need to send him over there to intervene before the fool gets drunk as lord. She’s been down this road with Roxy before, she’s not putting up with this.

“Hey?” The troll girl is leaning against her shoulder now. “I forgot to ask... what’s your name?”

“Oh dear, where have my manners gone?” Jane tears her attention away for a moment after having located John. “It’s Jane. Jane Crocker. What’s yours?”

“Nepeta Leijon!” She beams, curling up contentedly against her side. “Thank you for talking to me, Jane Crawrcker. I didn’t realize how lonely I was feeling.”

“It’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Nepeta.” She gives the girl a friendly pat on the head, and notices how a heavily muscled troll a little bit away gives her a look of suspicion. Well, whatever that was, she doesn’t care right now. Time to get a hold of John before Dave makes a complete ass of himself.

 

* * *

 

For all that he’d complained about the over-the-top preparations, Dave has to admit that the decorations are really pretty. People really had gone out of the way to make it all work with the available greenery close to this desert colony.

Sure, there are the enormous greenhouse bunkers with their climate controlled supplies of Earth plants, but everything that left them is incredibly regulated. From what Dave understands, they’d been allowed to take stray branches from the timber section, but that was about it. Absolutely no flowers could be removed, since those all served some purpose.

So the townspeople had gone out and cut themselves great bunches of the stuff growing close to the salt water springs that looks like multi-colored grass, but which is apparently some kind of fungus. It had braided really nicely into rainbow colored wreaths and garlands anyhow, which now hang everywhere around the square. These were then decorated with the mineral byproducts of the great, mounded algae cluster organisms that dot the desert. Sure, the little sparkling objects are basically just algae poo, but they _look_ like intricate flowers made of crystal.

The closest things the desert has to proper trees has branches that are almost impossible to cut, but huge meaty leaves the size of giant lily pads. They’d gathered a lot of those too, had cut numerous indentations in the marbled, metallic surfaces, and set a small solar light in each one. As the shadows grow longer, they are slowly coming to light one after another. The square is also covered over with a thin piece of fabric hanging between the buildings, to protect the sensitive eyes of the trolls from the worst of the sunlight. They townspeople had apparently put the little solar lights on top of that too, and their glow is starting to filter through. If he almost shuts his eyes, the glittering lights all around him could make him think that he’s in space again.

Fuck, he’s out of wine. But there’s this other bottle here...

He’s holding it up toward the fading light in an attempt to see what’s inside, when it gets yanked clean out of his hand. Dave blinks, trying to focus on the blue blur leaning over him, which resolves itself into John’s torso at first, and then his concerned face as he leans in over him. He’s still holding the bottle way out of his reach, though.

“Hey, Captain Windsock?” Dave mumbles, trying to sit up a bit straighter. Fuck, is he... drunk? When did that happen? “Can I have my bottle back?”

“Err, I think you’ve had enough, Dave.” John takes the bottle and puts it down on one of the tables, the devilishly clever bastard. Now Dave has to figure out how to use his legs before getting it back. “Are you okay? I’ve never seen you get drunk before.”

“Didn’t-“ Fuckshit, the world is spinning. He’s got no legs to stand on here - literally. He groans quietly, rubbing his eyes under his shades. “I didn’t mean to. ‘S just happened.”

John sits down next to him, frowning uneasily. “I guess I can’t blame you for being nervous, but wow. You gotta be careful with that dude. What with, you know, your family history in these matters and all.”

“You telling me.” Now that he’s actually focusing on it, that last glass was probably a mistake. Since he’s hardly had alcohol at all before this point, maybe it’s not such a fucking wonder that he’s got the alcohol tolerance of your average stick insect. Ugh.

“Not to mention, this is kind of your wedding night. I’m not sure that being three sheets to the wind is such a great strategy, Dave.”

Oh god. Holy shit. The most devout of shits living on nothing but herbs and scarce rainwater in the desert. Karkat. He’d been kind of thinking about him somewhere there in the beginning, thinking he needed to cool down a bit and stop being such a nervous wreck. He was going to have one drink and then go back to him. What happened with that? He buries his face in his hands. “John, I’m gonna- He’s gonna think I’m really stupid, John. What was I thinking? Shit. I fucked up.”

“Yeah, you kind of did.” John gently pats his shoulder. “But for what it’s worth, I think your new husband might be a bit drunk too? He was certainly stumbling around a bit moments ago, at least. So it looks like you both fucked up? It’s a shitty silver lining, but there you go.”

“Gotta... shit, gotta go and not- not be here. ‘M tired.” He shakes his head, trying to get the world to come into focus, trying to force his brain to think sober thoughts. Through the incoherent fog that won’t budge, he thinks that this is awful. Why do people like this? It feels like he’s been poisoned, which is literally exactly what he has. He just voluntarily drank poison until he couldn’t think straight. Amazing.

“Hey, Dave?” John leans in, catches his gaze to make sure he’s listening. “Here’s what we’re gonna do, okay? I’m going to go and get some water and something salty for you to eat, that’ll help you sober up a little bit. Then when you think you can think in a straight line, why don’t you go get Karkat before he gets drunker too? You can both go get some sleep. Got it?”

He’s talking to him the way he used to talk to Roxy, all patient and encouraging, enunciating clearly to make sure he’s getting everything. Well, not entirely. For it to be genuinely like a conversation with Roxy, John would need to be dodging some pretty aggressive flirting from Dave’s side with the skill of a professional limbo dancer. The thought makes Dave laugh quietly to himself, but it also makes him wonder if now that Roxy is staying on the wagon... is that going to be a Thing that happens at some point? How incestuous is their friend group actually going to get?

He nods in agreement a least, waits patiently for John to come back, and then sits there sipping water, nibbling pretzels and eating half of an entire enormous pickle, until he stops feeling like warmed-over garbage and starts feeling merely like he should be banned from making any more decisions for the evening. John sits next to him and prattles on about harmless shit until he judges Dave to be at least reasonably less sloshed.

“That’s good. Why don’t you go get your husband and have an early night, okay?” He pauses, then makes an embarrassed little grimace. “You know, in the least awkward-sounding, least suggestive way possible? Wow.”

“Yeah, no, I got that. Since we’re apparently both drunk? I didn’t even know trolls could get drunk.”

“Search me. I haven’t seen any of them drinking the wine or anything like that, they kind of had their own drink and food brought here. Maybe some of that is, like, troll booze? Anyway, he probably needs to take it easy on whatever he’s had.”

Dave nods, accepting help from John getting up. He feels relatively steady on his feet once he’s up, even if he can tell that his movements are more clumsy and his reflexes probably delayed. The whole experience gets a solid 2/10, and that’s only because the apple wine was delicious. Still not worth repeating. “Got it. I’ll go save my husband from himself like the actual knight I am.”

“Go go go! Be the hero!”

“Oh fuck off.” He takes a step, but then stops. “Hey John?”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

“Aw, don’t thank me. Jane saw you getting yourself pickled and asked me to go stop you.”

“Then my thank you extends to both the Crocker-Egbert siblings, as well as your magnificent bastard of a father who raised such straight-up strapping youth.” He takes a deep breath, starts to walk off again. “But seriously, thank you.”

 

* * *

 

He really shouldn’t have done that.

It’s bad enough that Gamzee actually brought some of his disgusting fucking pies with him to the party, because even bearing in mind that they’re responsible for making sure he doesn’t go completely shithive maggots... well, those things are still just vile. And he really didn’t need to bring three whole tins with him. That’s just an unreasonable amount of pie.

The point is, he shouldn’t have had a slice. Whatever the reason, feeling nervous about what was to come next, what the rest of his life was going to be like now... he still shouldn’t have allowed Gamzee to talk him into sampling his revolting pie - especially a whole damn slice of it. That was really fucking stupid of him.

Now all colors seem too bright despite the sun finally setting, all sounds are completely overwhelming, every smell is so strong that the swears he’s on the verge of actually seeing them just like Terezi. Everything is just _so much_ , and his feelings are no exception. He has no idea how to deal with all of them.

Which is probably why he’s draped across Gamzee’s lap like a wrung-out towel, and why he can’t seem to bring himself to care too much if his behavior right now borders on outright pale flirting. Can he just be allowed to be calmed the fuck down for a second? Does he always need to be chewing a hole in his own goddamn nerves, or can he just get to take a break from that?

There’s a shift in the air close by, a fair scent of something sweet, but Karkat doesn’t open his eyes just yet. While his senses seem to be working overtime, his brain appears to be stalling.

“Hey.” That’s Dave’s voice. Dave. Dave is definitely not supposed to see him like this. Not if he’s trying to preserve his dignity at all.

Karkat’s eyes fly open, and he does the only thing he can think of to try to stop the inevitable. He puts his entire hand over Dave’s face, giving it a gentle push. “No. Fuck off. I’m a complete fucking disgrace right now and I would like you to respect that.”

He didn’t think he pushed all that hard, but Dave makes a strangled little noise, overbalances backwards, and lands smack on his ass. “Oof!” He blinks, shades askew. “Okay. So John was right and I’m apparently not the only one who is outrageously intoxicated. Great to know.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving the fluffy light tresses standing on end, and there’s a faint red flush on his cheeks. “So first, not cool man, I’d just gotten off the floor. Secondly, I think we both need to go sleep all our seriously questionable decisions off before we end up making some more.”

There’s a piece of bright pink vegetation from the decorations stuck in his hair. Wow. It’s so bright, it’s practically glowing. Distracted, Karkat reaches out with his hand and gently frees the scrap of fluorescent fungus. Dave’s hair is exactly as soft as it looks, and Karkat’s hand lingers there a moment longer than necessary. The human’s cheeks darken further, and he stares at Karkat as if not sure what to make of the gesture.

“Bright,” he explains, knowing he should probably be angry at how dumb he sounds, but finding it hard to gather up the energy.

Dave leans his face in his hands for a moment while drawing in a deep breath. “Okay. Right. My incredibly professional diagnose is that you’re not, in fact, alien drunk. You’re alien stoned, aren’t you?” He meets Karkat’s aggressively blank look, in which he endeavors to put just about the entirety of his vast amount of what the fuck. “Right, nevermind.” He glances up at Gamzee, as if it’s the first time he notices that he’s there. “Hey, big guy? Can you maybe help us both up so we can go have a lie down?”

Gamzee blinks slowly, then grins his ridiculous, half-concussed grin. “Whatever my little man’s man wants, I’ll be happy to lend a motherfucking hand. I think perhaps he went just a little bit too hard on the pie, but it’s all good, he needed to get his wicked chill on.”

“Hey, douche bag, you’re the one who gave me that poisonous goddamn pastry,” Karkat grumbles, but the way he hides his face against Gamzee’s shirt probably takes the edge of his words a bit. When he looks up again, he notices Dave looking between the two of them as if he’s trying to figure something out. Karkat supposes that he’s only got himself to blame, after telling Dave all that stuff about quadrants.

Then he feels Gamzee start to unfold under him, followed by his enormous goddamn hands gently grasping him under his armpits. Before he can protest, his friend simply lifts him up and puts him down on his feet. Then he reaches down and does the same to Dave, apparently without any effort at all.

“There you go, my dudes. I think maybe the human is right, best friend. You should probably go and have a motherfucking righteous rest, really hit that snooze.”

Dave looks a little bit disoriented where he stands, but then solemnly reaches out a fist toward Gamzee. “You know what? You’re just objectively great. Let’s be bros when I’m not sozzled senseless, okay?”

“You’ve got it, future friend.” Gamzee gently bumps his fist against Dave’s, and Karkat rolls his eyes to cover up the weirdly sentimental feelings that are threatening to take over.

“Okay, great. That was really just amazingly poignant. Can we go somewhere I can lie down in peace and quiet now, and not listen to the stupid shit everyone around me keep regurgitating from their protein chutes? Was that what we were doing?”

Dave doesn’t even really reply properly, unless you count a small, “Yup,” followed by grabbing Karkat by the arm and tugging him with him. Finding that it’s hard enough to stay upright and not collide with the people they pass, Karkat contents himself with stumbling along after him.

They’re apparently to live in a residence closer to the border between their two colonies later on, but for tonight at least, they’ll have a block in a hive meant for visiting political guests. He’s not sure why this was the choice, what was wrong with the place he’d previously occupied or for that matter Dave’s home. Kanaya has speculated that since this is a big and official ceremony, perhaps tradition demands especially nicely furnished respite blocks for the last part of the ceremony.

If Kanaya’s research on these matters is correct, this is the part of the proceedings where the actual ritual copulating is supposed to take place. But Dave had talked about sleeping, right? So maybe he feels like that would be just a bit hasty too? Karkat sure as fuck hopes so. He’s still not sure how he feels about the human, or what to make of his own feelings during that one kiss, but unbridled mating fondness right this instant definitely isn’t it.

Uncertainty in this matter causes him to hesitate briefly in the door to the room, as Dave navigates a bit unsteadily inside. He makes an exasperated noise as he reaches the bed, and Karkat squints at it in confusion. Someone appears to have stripped the colorful leafy parts off desert vegetation and spread it all over the sheet? What is it with humans and putting colorful plants everywhere?

“Couldn’t find rose petals, huh? Maniacs,” Dave mumbles, which makes little to no sense and can probably be disregarded in that case. At least he seems to be brushing away the invasive plant matter, and once Karkat gets there, most of it is cleared away. Dave’s kicking off his shoes, then shrugs off his jacket. “I guess it’s too much to hope for that anyone’s left pajamas here? Eh, at least it’s a wide bed.”

“What’s pajamas?” Karkat demands, trying unsuccessfully to undo the buttons on his shirt sleeves.

“Uh... clothes to sleep in? Don’t trolls have those?”

He’s going to chew Kanaya out over these buttons being so small and impractical. “We usually sleep in cocoons full of slime, you dumbfuck. Why would we wear clothes? They’d only get wet.”

“...Oh. Right. Jesus, do you want me to just unbutton you?”

“...Fine.”

Karkat looks the other way while Dave undoes his sleeves, then moves on to the front of his shirt, trying to pretend his face isn’t burning, and also that he can’t feel the cool human fingers accidentally brushing his skin. They undress in silence from that point, and Karkat quickly slips between the covers once he’s down to his underwear, feeling exposed. Dave is still wearing his shirt, and he hesitates for a moment, swaying slightly.

“Okay, so we both had a bit too much of something or other, we can both acknowledge that and accept our shame, right?”

Karkat gives him a bleary look from where he’s snuggled up. “What’s your point?” He’s definitely starting to regret that pie even more. It obviously has the opposite effect on Gamzee, but for him it seems to make whatever he’s feeling even more intense. He doesn’t care for it.

“So we’ll both probably feel like shit in the morning, right? I mean, I’ll be real... I’m already feeling a bit like shit, and it’s bound to get worse.”

“I don’t know.” He’s not about to explain that mostly he’s feeling incredibly emotionally fragile, and his senses working on overdrive isn’t helping. “I mean that stuff I had is really not made for eating, so who the fuck knows? Gamzee’s been doing it for so long, he’s probably a lot more used to whatever poisonous bullshit it does with your brain.”

“Yeah, sounds like tomorrow is going to be a blast. I think I’m going to just go get a bucket.”

Karkat tenses up, heart suddenly hammering. _What?_ Oh fuck, he should’ve known not to trust the human, shouldn’t he?

“There was some kind of cupboard down the hall, there should be-“ Dave pauses, staring at him. “...Are you okay?”

“No! I’m suddenly not fucking okay at all! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“...What?” Dave looks bewildered, halting on his way to the door with his hand still outstretched. Like he’d just been doing the most casual thing, and he can’t wrap his pan around that maybe Karkat isn’t at all emotionally ready for human copulation antics.

Karkat wraps the blankets around him, scooting over to the very furthest corner of the bed, away from him. “You know, I was beginning to delude myself into thinking you were an at least marginally rational individual. So thank you for reminding me that you and your entire species are depraved fucking lunatics, I guess?”

Dave looks completely taken aback by now, and a little bit hurt. “Dude... what are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?”

“Well, I don’t know Dave, did you? Maybe it’s completely normal for humans to not even ask someone, and just assume they want to mate as long as they’re ‘married’, what the fuck do so know? But I’m not-“

“What? Mate? What the fuck?”

What right has he got to look so confused and vulnerable, after what he just said? Karkat grinds his teeth together, fighting an instinct to just run away. “Don’t you dare act like you didn’t literally just say that you were going to- Don’t you- _Don’t_.”

Dave is slowly lifting his hands in a placating gesture, shaking his head. “I have no idea if you just hit the paranoia part of the high or what, but whatever you think I said, I didn’t mean it like that, okay? Neither of us is clearly in any state to do anything like that. Literally the last thing on my mind right now.”

“But-“ It’s hard to talk through the panic, the disorienting feeling of everything being strange and alien and out of control. “You just said you were going to- to get-“ He chokes on the word and his own humiliation.

“A bucket?” Dave blinks at him as Karkat lets out a hiss, hands curling into fists. “What the actual fuck has a bucket got to do with sex?”

“...Wait. What?” Karkat stares right back, his confusion suddenly managing to overtake both his rage and the impending panic attack. “You mean... you don’t _know_?”

The moment stretches out forever, both staring at each other as if trying to gauge if the other one is joking, or possibly just insane. Karkat relaxes slightly, but can feel the slowly dawning realization that maybe he just made a huge fool of himself, and that in no way makes it easier to break the silence. So he just gapes at Dave like a fish trying desperately to breathe air.

“Okay. Okay. Cultural clarification time.” Dave sighs, swaying slightly where he stands, and leans against the door to support himself. After a moment he takes off his shades, rubs his eyes tiredly. “Humans use buckets as cleaning supplies, alright? And for carrying shit in. And in this particular case, I was going to get one in case I’m hung over in the morning, to have something to throw up in-”

Karkat tries to speak, but all that leaves his lips is a scandalized little squeak. He’s pretty sure that if you can die from blushing, his fate is sealed. Humans are freaks.

“-which is _totally normal_ in human culture, and not some kind of kinky emetophilia, okay? I just didn’t want to hurl on the goddamn fancy-ass carpet.” He stands there in his boxers and his shirt mostly unbuttoned, looking dazed and tired and a bit chilly. Karkat suddenly feels like an asshole. He crosses his arms over his chest, looking away.

“Humans are so fucking weird.” He sighs explosively, knowing he has to say it. “I’m sorry, alright? It’s definitely not my fault that humans use pails for weird shit like that, but I guess... I guess I flew off the handle a bit. I just thought-“

“Yeah, okay, I really have no idea how buckets might be utilized for sex, and quite frankly I feel like that’s a great discussion for literally any other day.” Dave ignores the choked little sound of disbelief Karkat makes. “But I’m sorry for freaking you out like that. I didn’t mean it.” A beat, then: “So, I guess I’ll pass on getting that bucket?”

“I’m not having a bucket in this room for any fucking reason!”

“Got it. Okay. I’ll just try to make it to the wash basin if I have to.” He dithers slightly where he stands. “So is it like... okay if I come over there?”

“For the love of fuck.” Karkat rolls his eyes. “Yes, Dave, you may in fact sleep on the bed instead of the floor, because I’m just that good of a person. Truly the legends of my benevolence and compassion are true.”

Obviously that joke flies over Dave’s head a bit, but he lets out a small sigh of relief, stumbling back over to the bed. Karkat wordlessly kicks some of the blankets back over on his side, and they both lie in silence, trying to pretend like they’re not listening to each other breathe. Karkat isn’t sure exactly how he’s expected to sleep now, and keeps pondering if he should just try to get up again as soon as Dave’s asleep, until he ends up drifting off without even noticing.

At some point during the night, he wakes up briefly because Dave grabs his hand and holds on to it as if his life depended on it. Karkat gets out a half coherent question, but the human appears to still be asleep.

He mutters a few choice curses to no one in particular, but he doesn’t take his hand back.


	8. Relief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Kanaya manage to maintain some dignity in approaching the wedding night, while all guys in the story consistently keep being awkward losers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep updating the tags, but yeah, more heavy mentions of substance abuse + child abuse in this chapter.

“Well, that was somewhat unfortunate.”

Kanaya’s voice seems to indicate that she’s trying to keep the remark light, nothing more than a gentle jibe at the expense of the boys. But since she’d stopped mid-dance to gaze after them as they stumbled unsteadily in the direction their room for tonight, her brow furrowed in worry, her attempt at levity doesn’t even manage to get off the ground. Rose frowns slightly as well, silently berating herself. She’d been preoccupied, yes, but not so much that she couldn’t have kept an eye on her brother. She should have at least noticed that he was drinking before it got to this point.

“He doesn’t usually do this. I have to assume that he was even more nervous than what I accounted for.” She doesn’t like how defensive her voice sounds, even though it’s perfectly reasonable to want to explain the situation. She doesn’t want Kanaya to worry that her very drunk brother is going to be a regular feature in Karkat’s life, after all. But the truth is that she’s feeling protective of her family as a whole, because Kanaya is far from stupid, and she’d probably noticed Roxy’s wistful little sigh earlier as she passed by the impromptu bar, and how she’d held on to Dirk’s arm for a moment to steady herself. She can’t possibly _not_ have noticed the state their mother is in by now.

She probably hasn’t noticed how hard Rose has to clamp down on the temptation to at least try the wine, but she might have noticed her not drinking and wondered about it. That in itself is a vulnerable little thought, and Rose would very much like not to have had it.

If asked for a guess, Rose might’ve assumed that Dave would react to alcohol the way Dirk does, which is to say hardly at all. But no, that would be a shallow assumption, and she’d like to think that she is more astute than that. After all, one of the reasons that Dirk had avoided so much of their uncle’s unpleasant mind games is that stoicism comes so naturally to him, and that even when emotional he will attempt to control his own reactions perfectly. His inability when it comes to escapism certainly leads to its own issues, but loss of self control isn’t one of them.

There really is only two ways for a control freak to react to lowered inhibitions, she supposes. Either like Dirk, who instinctively fights it whether he wants to or not, or like herself. She’d prefer not to think about her own opposite reaction.

But Dave... he’d always been more sensitive, more expressive and less compulsively serious than his brother. If there was any justice in the world, he would’ve been allowed to do nothing but spend his days making music, creating ironic ‘art’ and researching esoteric branches of history and science. He was never made for the world of intricate politics and high stake situations which they’d been born into, but he also doesn’t have the kind of mind that can turn away and pretend not to care.

In other words, he was in every way flawed according to their uncle. He cared too much and yet wasn’t violent or ambitious enough to back it up - that’s how he saw it. Which was why he’d taken Dave under his wings at a young age, and it had taken far too long for the rest of them to fully grasp what that meant. They’d thought him an eccentric but well-meaning family member who wanted to protect Dave, had his best interest at heart under the ironic demeanor.

Rose isn’t sure she will ever forgive herself for being far too late to see through the aloof act to the antisocial, abusive bastard that he is. If anyone should’ve understood what was happening, surely it was her. When she thinks of it that way, she can’t help feeling that it’s doubly her fault that they ended up here. Her reckless suicide mission, and her failure to protect her brother.

She knows Dave thinks that the three of them have a pact to protect Roxy, because she’s the one of them who is the least messed up by their upbringing. But Rose is pretty certain it’s more like her and Dirk protecting their younger siblings; the one who is thankfully least affected, and the one who has been hurt the most; both of them still capable of vulnerability against the odds.

Not that she disagrees with that it should be Dave who ended up in this particular mess with her. In fact, it might just be good for him...

A light brush of fingers against her cheek brings her back to the present with a start. Kanaya looks a little bit sheepish, but her hand nonetheless stays resting gently against her cheek. Her fingers are slightly cool, reflecting the blood hue of her mid-spectrum caste, which is delicately staining her cheeks at this moment. The faint fluorescence unique for her kind only serves to accentuate the flush. “Are you worried about your brother?”

Rose sighs, suppressing the more complicated answer in favor of one which will do for now. “Not exactly. Despite how he acts, in some ways he’s surprisingly sensible. I imagine he won’t want to repeat this experience in a hurry.” She tilts her head slightly, allows a faint smile back on her lips. “How about your friend? I’m guessing this is somewhat out of the ordinary for him too?”

Kanaya replies with an exasperated little noise, rubbing tiredly at her forehead. “I don’t know what he was thinking. At least from what I understand, the consumption of alcohol for soporific and pleasurable purposes is not uncommon in human society. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s accurate. It’s been a part of most of our cultures for thousands of years by now, and is considered quite socially acceptable, along with a few other substances of a similar nature. But those are grown almost exclusively for medicinal purposes in this colony.”

Kanaya nods. “Yes, that is the impression I got. But to put it rather mildly, consuming Sopor Slime is _not_ considered in any way normal in troll society. Not any more than I imagine humans indulge in ingesting their own bedding?”

“...I can’t say I’ve ever felt tempted to nibble on my sheets, no, but then again that wouldn’t do anything except probably disturb my digestion.”

“It’s true that the slime might indeed be pleasurable to consume, I have no personal experience on the matter, but it is nonetheless meant to provide a suitable soporific effect through skin contact only.” She glances at the huge highblood troll who is still gazing off affably in the direction where Karkat and Dave had left. “Gamzee is the only one I have ever heard of who keeps eating the wretched stuff.” She makes a face. “As distasteful as I find it, in his case I have to admit that it’s the preferable option. Without its influence, he is honestly the most vicious and terrifying troll of his caste I have ever come across, and when it comes to highbloods, that really is saying something.”

Rose raises one eyebrow slightly. “He self-medicates to overcome his own genetic predisposition? Fascinating.”

“Yes, and the only reason he’s allowed to continue doing so, I imagine, is because of Feferi’s influence. Otherwise, you could say our society does not look kindly upon those who would prefer to control their violent impulses.” Her eyes drift to the path down which Karkat left too, and for a moment her hand goes to her neck as if looking for something which isn’t there. Then she hastily lowers it again. Interesting. “At any rate, there is _no_ reason at all for Karkat to do something like that.”

“Well, I imagine that he’s rather nervous too. It certainly seemed that way before and during the ceremony, did it not?”

There is a hint of a fond smile on Kanaya’s lips for a moment, even if it’s quickly replaced by a stern frown, like that of a disappointed parent. “I realize as much, yes, but it was nonetheless foolish of him. And the _flirting_ -“

She cuts herself short, looking embarrassed, and Rose raises her another eyebrow and gives her an amused look. “The flirting?”

“It- Well, it probably didn’t look like flirting to you, but let’s just say his behavior with Gamzee was _very_ blatant, despite the fact that a pale relationship between them would probably be rather inadvisable right now.”

Rose laughs quietly then. “You know, even for humans, getting kind of drunk and collapsing in someone’s lap does indeed come across as a little flirtatious. So inadvisable or not, I suppose that I’m still relieved that the flirtation in question was pale, considering the situation.”

“I suppose.” Kanaya sighs, looking a little bit tired. So it doesn’t come entirely as a surprise when she tentatively reaches out and grasps Rose’s hand in hers. “Perhaps... Unless you mind terribly, I would suggest that it might be time for the two of us to withdraw as well? It’s been a long day, after all.”

Rose nods, wondering exactly how much Kanaya might have researched the concept of the wedding night, and whether or not she might expect things to be done in a traditional fashion. She does come across as someone who takes things rather literally, and her slightly flustered demeanor now seems to indicate that she at the very least considers it a possibility. Oh dear. They are going to have to have a talk about this... in private, of course.

Not that Rose necessarily minds the idea at all. Kanaya is beautiful, intelligent, pleasant to spend time with and unpredictable enough to fascinate her. She personally has fairly little sentimentality tied up with feeling attraction and acting on it, although the fact that she respects and likes Kanaya certainly makes the prospect even more interesting. She wouldn’t mind indulging in an infatuation, perhaps even something more lasting, if that is indeed what she’s starting to feel.

But... well, it has to be on both their terms. Rose is aware enough of her own manipulative and selfish nature to know how easy it would be to simply make use of the situation to her own advantage. But she won’t. Awareness means that she can choose how to act, and so she will choose to make sure that anything they do is on both their terms. It will be far more interesting that way.

She smiles brightly, giving Kanaya’s hand a little squeeze as she nods. “That sounds like a good idea. Besides, there are a few things I would like to talk to you about.”

 

* * *

 

“Welp, there they go. I’m officially the only one of us headed for certain spinsterhood now.”

Dirk glances up at Roxy, raising his eyebrows slightly and saying nothing. Jake had gone off to get drinks, which they probably both deserve after that seriously awkward spectacle Roxy had coaxed them into. He supposes he should make a show of being annoyed with his little sister... but who would he be kidding? She knows that awkward or not, he still enjoyed it, and would probably do it again in a heartbeat if given half an excuse. So what’s the point.

At least she doesn’t call him on it even though she could, instead she just winks at him, taking a moment to adjust the low neckline of her dress. She had expressed incredibly clearly earlier that there was literally no point in being the maid of honor unless she got a shot at being the ‘most eligible total babe’ at the wedding party. After a moment or two, she had added that what she meant was a huge and unashamed slut - though he’s not convinced she hadn’t said _that_ specifically to make him grimace.

Not that he actually gives a shit about the sex lives of his siblings, but he also would prefer not to hear about it.

“I mean, two of my siblings are sooo respectably married now, swanning off to consummate the whole affair, and here’s the two of us.” She grins, clearly despite her obvious attempts at getting in character. “I’m pretty sure I’m justified in having some sort of Jane Austen inspired crisis about this.”

Dirk snorts quietly. “I’m pretty certain that as the youngest sibling it is in fact entirely reasonable for you to be the last to get married, if we’re supposed to be going full Austen here. Either that or you should’ve taken the chance to run off with a disreputable soldier at age sixteen.”

“See, that’s my problem! I mean, I had all these soldiers to choose from even back then-“

“You _were_ a soldier back then, Roxy.”

“-Exactly! I should’ve been spoilt for choice.” She sighs theatrically. “But they were just all just way too reputable. Makes it hard for a girl to be seduced away from her family and cause a proper scandal.”

“That, or our social circle was just a little bit too small, despite our involvement with SKAIA.” They had always been an insular little group, and it hadn’t helped that they’d almost immediately been chosen for rather specific and classified missions. Their family because of their mother’s influence on the board of SKAIA, their uncle’s position within its forces, and the other four because they hailed from a bloodline of especially notable heroes and explorers. They all just had an edge on the other recruits around their own age, having been trained long before they joined the ranks, and being well versed in complicated interstellar politics. Viewed like that, their relative isolation from the rest of the forces made sense.

Roxy hums in agreement. “It’s true. So that makes two eligible boys that weren’t my actual flesh and blood, _le sign_.” She holds up two fingers as if the fact needs further demonstrating. “One who was already spoken for one way or the other,” she lowers one finger, and Dirk doesn’t really have time to comment on the assumption before she continues, “and the other...”

They both glance at John, who is now talking excitedly to Karkat’s huge friend, gesturing wildly like the doofus he is. “The other was indeed ‘way too reputable’,” Dirk notes dryly, “if by that you mean that he was a bit too damn decent to get involved with you while you were still drunk out of your fucking mind about ninety percent of the time.” He pauses, glancing sideways at her, trying to gauge her expression. Mostly she just looks pensive. “There’s nothing stopping you now, though.”

She looks away, smiling a bit tiredly. “Yeeeah, I know. It’s just kind of weird now, you know? ‘Hey, remember back when I used to be super drunk all the time and kept hitting on you even though you kept turning me down? Well, I’m not drunk now, so maybe you and I can get married and have babies!’ It’s kind of hard not to sound mad desperate, I guess.”

“Yeah, I would avoid phrasing it like that,” Dirk replies, ignoring her eye roll. “But from what I can tell, he’s always liked you. No reason why you can’t hit on him now in a not drunk, not incredibly aggressive fashion.”

“Wooooow. Look who’s talking!”

“...When have I ever been drunk?”

“Oh em gee, _so_ not what I was talking about and you know it. Do I have to spell it out to you, huh?”

“Spell what out, if I may ask?”

They both jump slightly, as Jake suddenly stands between them like an easy guy to forget about. Right. He was getting drinks. Fuck.

“That he’s not even half as smooth as he thinks he is, and maybe he should get schooled himself before handing out lessons to others,” Roxy replies cryptically, winking.

“...I beg your pardon?” Jake says, predictably. Roxy just laughs.

“Don’t worry about it, Jake.”

Dirk feels like they have gotten pretty fucking far away from the point now, and instead veered into confused and uncomfortable territories which he’d rather not touch right at this moment. “Anyway, it’s not like those were ever your only options. Not even just the boys, either - let’s not indulge some platitudinous pretense that there’s a single completely straight person in our family any further.” He nods at the room at large. “So get out there.”

Roxy giggles, poking his cheek. “You know it’s pretty bad when even your own brother is telling you to go get laid. But I can take a hint and will make myself scarce.” Without another word she strolls off, but she does direct a seriously unsubtle wink over her shoulder.

Jake is still standing there with both their drinks in his hands, looking befuddled. “What the Dickens was all that about?”

It’s Jake, so he probably didn’t catch most of it, bless him. But there’s a faint flush on his cheeks that suggests that he’s not so dumb that he hasn’t caught by now that Roxy was teasing them, and what _that_ most likely was about. It’s so hard to tell with him; Dirk can never be entirely sure how much he really gets about... well, about this entire goddamn mess. Had he ever caught on to Jane’s feelings about him? Had he any opinion at all about the fact that she had decided to withdraw before either of them even made a proper move? Does he get that this probably means that she in fact deserves him so much more?

Probably not in so many words, at least.

Dirk takes his drink from Jake, kind of wishing that he could actually get drunk just for once, but he knows that the only thing it’s likely to do is make him more gloomy. So instead he sips on it while his gaze is inevitably drawn to Jane. He doesn’t exactly consider himself an expert on such matters, but odds are that she in fact looks lovely in her dark blue cocktail dress, which makes good use of the ample curves which he, Dirk, certainly doesn’t have.

...Shit. It’s still hard not to compare himself to her at every single opportunity, even though they’d promised each other to cut that fucking nonsense out. Can’t he focus on something more useful? Like how she seems to be in an animated and happy discussion with one of the trolls, the one confusingly dressed up in a nice green dress, something that looks like a very rumpled hat, and slippers. They certainly seem to be getting along, judging by the way the troll is lying with her head in Jane’s lap - but then again, Jane was always so good at making people open up. Also unlike him.

He sighs, knowing he just can’t get his mind right tonight, and tears his gaze away. Fuck his self-punishing brain and the cluster of obsessively examined yet completely immutable complexes it rode in on.

There’s a brittle clinking sound and a muffled ‘oh shucks’, and Dirk doesn’t even have to turn his head to know that Jake had accidentally set his glass down too hard and broke it. He really needs to fix that damn arm. But also, had Jake really finished his drink that fast, or-

That’s as far as he gets before Jake very carefully slings said arm around his shoulders, giving them as light a squeeze as he can manage. “You know, I know you’re forever brooding and worrying yourself addlepated if given half a chance, and I do realize that it’s your very own brother and sister that are caught up in all this jolly awkward ballyhoo...” He frowns, looking concerned. “But, well, there has to come a time when a man realizes that there’s only so much he can do, don’t you know? The onus isn’t always on you to make everything alright, old chum.”

Dirk sighs. “I’m fine, Jake. Truth to be told, there’s no actual reason to worry about Dave or Rose tonight. I imagine that the former is sleeping off his embarrassing inebriation already, and the latter... well, she can handle herself.”

Jake’s nods hesitantly, but his frown doesn’t go away. “Then what is it? It’s not hard to tell that something is troubling you.”

“It’s nothing.” He keeps his tone flat and even, but notices almost immediately that this is a misjudgment. Instead of calming assurance, his words somehow turn into a terse dismissal. Jake’s expression easily betrays his hurt, as does the way he kind of sags where he stands. Now that Dirk is really looking, he notices the slight tension around his mouth, the nervous fidgeting of his other hand. Right, Jake doesn’t do very well with crowds for extended periods of time, and that combined with his lowered self-esteem after he lost his arm... he’s probably not feeling too good. But he’d reached out even so in an attempt to help - which Dirk then promptly threw back in his face.

Fuck. Why is he so _bad_ at this?

Jake tries to pull away, mumbling something about being tired, and Dirk knows he can’t just let him leave. Not like this. So instead he puts down his drink and takes hold of Jake’s metal hand to make him stay put, slips his other arm around his waist. “I’m tired too.” He sighs, forcing the words out. “Look, maybe we can talk about things... somewhere else? Just not here.”

Jake looks taken aback, and then downright flustered, and Dirk isn’t sure what to do with that. Had he meant what Jake seems to think he means, that they’re finally going to talk about the quite frankly monstruous elephant in the room that is his convoluted feelings for him now? He doesn’t know. He’d just wanted to not reject Jake’s help when it was offered, not have him go back to his house feeling dejected and hurt and more than likely insecure.

“V-Very well. Crikey. Let us find somewhere more-“ He actually swallows audibly, making a _gulp_ sound like in a cartoon. “-more private to talk. Lead the way.”

Well, this will almost certainly be disastrous, but Dirk has somehow painted himself into a corner now. He does as Jake asks, tugging him with him, and can’t help momentarily meeting Jane’s gaze as he passes her. It’s solemn and steady, and almost entirely impossible to read. In a perverse way, it might even be easier if he could see any resentment or anger there. Jane always had much more of a temper than anyone else in their group, so why can’t she be pissed off now? Dirk is pretty sure he deserves it. But she just looks a bit jaded, a bit defeated. And... is it just him, or does she look _relieved_ as well?

The troll girl pauses mid-story to look up at Jane. Her gaze snaps to Dirk and Jake, then back, and her eyes seem to widen in sudden comprehension. She reaches up and pats Jane’s face gently with obvious compassion, and thus Jane is the first to break eye contact, smiling tiredly down at her new friend.

Just as well, because Dirk has to look away too or risk Jake noticing, because that’s something neither of them need in their lives. However they’ve worked things out between themselves, and whatever he might personally think of the results, in a way this part doesn’t really concern Jake. This is Jane’s decision to make, and Dirk is just going to have to respect it.

So he leaves with his arm tight around Jake’s waist, and with Jake’s head leaning cautiously against his shoulder after a moment or two. He has no idea what’s supposed to come next, what to say, how to behave now. In fact, he’s got no damn plan at all, and that’s a terrifying thought.

So he’s got no idea why he’s suddenly feeling relieved too.

 

* * *

 

“What was it you wished to speak to me about?” Kanaya feels that she deserves more recognition than is currently available for keeping her voice steady and matter-of-fact, even as Rose helps her undo the string of buttons running all the way down her back. She isn’t at all surprised to find the human taking to the task quickly and effectively, with a minimum amount of fumbling. She has seen how neatly she handles her knitting needles, after all.

“This, in a sense,” Rose replies - unnecessarily cryptically, Kanaya feels. But at least she’s quick to elaborate. “I am going to assume - because I would not insult you by suggesting anything else - that you have done some very thorough research of human wedding conventions these last weeks?”

“Yes. That is correct.” If her vascular system could stop its impromptu gymnastics right about now, that would be helpful.

“And since I started out so strong, I shall go on with my assuming, and make the assumption that this included the customs surrounding the wedding night in one form or other? I do believe there’s a fair amount of it available on the SKAIA informational network, and I’ve seen no indication that trolls do not have access to it.”

“This, also, is accurate. The highbloods are suspicious of it, calling it an alien conspiracy and preferring our own data grid. But while I find the name aesthetically displeasing, SBURB is in fact the most comprehensive, widest-spanning means of communication and information transfer available, and it would be foolish not to access it.”

Rose sounds amused. “You’re avoiding my original question, Kanaya.”

It would be nice to think that having her back turned on Rose would mean that she cannot tell how flustered she already is, but she knows that’s nonsense. If nothing else, she is once more losing control of her autoluminescence, meaning the room is quite brightly lit by her skin. She might as well grab the musclebeast by the udder.

“Yes. In fact, I had been meaning to speak to you about that as well...” She can hear her voice shake as it trails off, not at all the assertive tone she had wished to take, and wishes that this could be a problem that she could solve by carefully gathering information instead, or by giving advice to someone else... or just taking her chainsaw to it. Regrettably, neither of these things sound like a viable option.

“Done,” Rose declares, undoing the last button. The air in the room flutters against Kanaya’s back as Rose steps around her, gazing up at her with a small smile. The way her eyes reflect the glow from Kanaya’s skin makes the troll think about Nepeta’s lusus. “Regardless of what you read - and bearing in mind that some early human mindsets in this respect are downright barbaric - I’m aware that this is not your custom. Nor have we known each other for long enough for us to approach this matter in a way more in line with how your culture deals with it.” She shrugs, her pale shoulders catching the light strangely. “I admit I don’t have a thorough understanding of how your society views more temporary entanglements, and certainly not how you feel about the matter, but to simply assume you would be alright with it seems irresponsible at best. So I thought I’d make clear that I do not expect you to do anything you are not comfortable with.” She pauses, then frowns slightly. “I’m so sorry. I should have prefaced my tiresomely long statement with that, shouldn’t I?”

At first it is hard to find her voice in the midst of the overwhelming relief, but Kanaya makes a herculean effort to struggle through it. “Honestly I find the structure of your statement to be very elegant and objectively enjoyable, and I think I can say that I was fairly okay with being held in suspense for some while for the sake of a more sophisticated delivery.” Rose laughs in response, and Kanaya finds that she’s able to smile as well. “But thank you. I don’t wish to imply that I haven’t enjoyed your company greatly so far-“ She falters again, conscious of her cheeks coloring, and Rose shakes her head.

“No such implication has been noted,” she assures, and there’s a glint in her eyes that makes Kanaya’s legs feel just a bit weak.

“-it is just that it is rather a large step to take in such a short time, especially since...” She flashes a weak smile, lowering her gaze. “...I have never done anything like that before. I have not, in fact, even kissed someone until today.”

Rose reaches out and takes her right hand in hers, gently twining their fingers together. “Then let’s take this a bit more slowly, shall we?”

Kanaya hesitates, but curiosity gets the better of her. “Have you? That is to say...”

“Yes,” Rose replies simply. “A couple of times - it was hardly anything dramatic, and it didn’t involve a lot of emotional investment, but it was enjoyable even so.” She leans forward a bit so their gazes meet again, lips quirking. “But please don’t take my cavalier attitude as impatience. I do not mind letting you decide the pace at all.”

That is in fact strangely reassuring, and Kanaya finds her own shoulders relaxing a bit, her face relaxing into a more genuine smile. “Then perhaps... something a bit more appropriate for the moment?”

“I’m all ears.”

Kanaya allows herself another moment of hesitation, thinking through if this is in fact what she really wants. To both her surprise and relief, she finds that it is. “I would like- During the ceremony there were so many people watching, I didn’t feel like I could relax at all, so I thought perhaps that we could try... maybe just kissing? I would like to know what it is like when it is not...”

“Mandatory? Supervised? Incredibly awkward? Slightly hampered by restrictive corsetry?” Rose raises her eyebrows with a meaningful smirk. “All of the above?”

“...Yes. That about covers it.”

“Then I would prefer actually removing this dress and my heels, if you don’t mind? There is something to be said for comfort over aesthetics in this particular scenario.”

“I do not mind at all. Since it’s only you and me in here, I think perhaps we should aim towards being as comfortable as possible.”

They exchange smiles, more relaxed now, and go about removing their dresses and accessories, stripping down to their underwear with far less awkwardness than Kanaya would have anticipated. Since Rose had indicated that she should take the lead, she gets on the bed herself after clearing away some of the rather pretty decorative plant matter. The human slides down beside her, her body feeling exactly as soft and warm as she’d expected, and yet somehow still, the sensation takes her by surprise.

“Ready?” she asks, a little bit teasing, but there is nothing demanding about it. There’s expectation, but no insistence.

Kanaya feels like a reply would be pretty superfluous, so she simply leans in and allows their lips to brush together. Gently at first, trying out the new sensation, trying to maneuver them both into a better position. Rose’s arms quickly become wrapped around her neck, her fingers trapped in her hair, and her own hands end up resting on her waist. She completely fails to realize how they draw closer to each other with each deepening kiss, each experimental flick of a tongue or tentative graze of a fang, until it’s brought to her attention by Rose sliding her leg over her hip, pushing her slightly backwards until she’s practically on top of her. She’s scandalized to find that she doesn’t mind.

Other than that, though, Rose does nothing except kiss her back. Her hands stay where they are, and she doesn’t shift around or press closer. Even when Kanaya’s breathing audibly picks up, and she can’t hold back a small gasp as Rose bites down on her lower lip, she doesn’t push. She allows it to be just kissing, albeit passionate and rather undressed such, and Kanaya is grateful for it.

After a while they both find themselves growing drowsy, the kisses getting slower and softer, the pauses between longer. Without really making a decision on the matter, they start drifting off in each others’ arms. Kanaya wakes up slightly as Rose disentangles herself momentarily, fishes on the floor for her pillow, and then scoots backward to align her body with hers again. Too tired to talk, Kanaya wraps her arm around her waist, buries her face against her back, and allows sleep to claim her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think I’m hyped about writing the ~morning after~ all of these shenanigans, you think right.


	9. Every day is the first

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the wedding dawns with some remembered backstory, a discussion on morality, cuddles and... hairy legs.
> 
> Yep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Write a fic full of incredibly wordy characters, they said. It will be fun, they said.
> 
> ...Okay, it is fun, but damn.

It takes a while for Jake to wake up, coasting uneasily on the edge of muddled dreams because his eyelids still feel much too heavy. Usually he’s an early riser but maybe he was up late last night? He shifts slightly in an attempt to jog his brain a bit, and then immediately freezes. He’s very clearly not alone in his bed... and just like that, the previous night starts to crystallize in his still sleep-soggy brain, causing him to open his eyes in mild alarm.

It appears he didn’t misremember. First of all, this isn’t actually _his_ bed. Secondly, Dirk’s face is barely more than an inch from his own, meaning that even without his glasses, he can still see it relatively well. Speaking of glasses, Dirk also isn’t wearing his own rather ridiculous eyewear. It’s not exactly the first time Jake sees him without them, or indeed sees him asleep, what with their many missions together. But it certainly is the first time he, ah, has the opportunity to study it quite so closely.

He lies still, knowing Dirk is a notoriously light sleeper, and that he’ll no doubt wake up if he tries to move away. He thinks perhaps it would be nice with just a moment or two to gather his thoughts. So instead he notes how when he’s asleep, Dirk’s mouth relaxes from the firm line it usually is pressed into, making it look soft and almost childish. He can glimpse a hint of orange in between his fair eyelashes, because apparently sleeping with his eyes completely closed is just not cool enough for him or something. He’s noticed this before, and is still torn between thinking it seems silly and impractical, and being kind of impressed regardless.

Like this, he looks more like the guy Jake had first met standing next to him on the quite frankly vast floor of one of SKAIA’s training halls, waiting for the superiors who called them there to explain why. It was after Jake had finished the initial half-year of training, which at the time he’d scoffed at as being ridiculously easy for a fellow of his experience and considerable amount of sheer grit. It was a position he’d later been forced to revisit more than once, and often to humiliating results.

Back then, though, he’d been full of gumption, excited to finally be allowed some genuine action. Like everyone else, he had been sorted into one of SKAIA’s specialist forces at the end of his training, a designation based on the abilities he’d shown, and which would determine his further training. He and his three cousins had ended up in different forces, and while he couldn’t say he was surprised, it was nonetheless a bit of a bummer to think that they would henceforth have fewer opportunities to spend time together. So he’d been surprised to enter the room only to find his cousins there as well, dressed just like him in their spanking new uniforms. The same cut and fabric, save for a few minor details, but all in different colors.

Unsurprisingly, Jade had ended up in the black and white of the Space forces, dedicated to the exploration and assessment of new planets - she had always had such an enquiring mind. John was wearing the blue Breath uniform, which signified that he would be working with backup and support to the other forces. They were frequently underestimated, since they had no speciality as such, but Jake had always supposed that meant that they possessed the qualities to excel in just about every situation. Jane smiled at him as he met her glance, and then pulled a bit awkwardly on the grey and green cloth of the Life uniform she was wearing. Of course she was in the force dedicated to bringing forth excellent medics. She had always looked to the needs of others, after all.

Jake had looked down then on the yellow and white of his own uniform, which slated him for the Hope force dedicated to outreach and peacekeeping. Even now, remembering the surge of pride he’d felt back then will always cause him to smile, even if it’s tinged with complicated and bittersweet feelings as of late.

Then the door had opened again, and four other youths had entered almost nonchalantly, right on the hour. They were also in four different uniforms. Light, research and analysis; Time, the strike force; Void, scouting unknown territory; Heart, infiltration and subterfuge. They’d lined up next to Jake’s family without any sign of surprise, waiting calmly for their superiors to speak.

Jake had tried very hard not to stare at them, and regrettably not succeeded all that well. Of course he knew who they were - didn’t everyone? While it might be true that his family had quite the number of truly remarkable heroes to live up to, full of derring-do and outstanding moxie, they were by and large also people who shunned the public eye as much as possible. So while the recent generation had grown up aware of the greatness of their ancestry, they had also grown up in relative anonymity themselves.

Not so much the children of Professor Lalonde, the fruit of her genius as a scientist and her dedication to populating new planets without having to rely on more traditional methods and mindsets. Not to mention nephews and nieces of an actual war hero as well. Jake had watched them on popular video streams many times, self-assured and bright even at their tender age, always dealing out witty answers and dazzling charm like cheap cigars. Enigmatic Rose, smart-mouthed Dave, charismatic Roxy, and tough-as-nails Dirk.

The latter was standing so close to Jake that if he reached out sideways, he was sure he’d be able to knock the shades off his face - not that he’d ever be caught dead doing something so discourteous, of course. _And_ now he’d noticed him staring despite his best efforts, turning to meet his gaze with an unreadable expression. After a moment or two of intense eye contact - intensely uncomfortable, if he was to be honest - the other boy inclined his head very slightly.

“I’m Dirk,” he said.

“Yes,” said Jake, because he already knew that, and found himself more than a little bit flummoxed by being addressed directly so suddenly. He noticed a small twitch that couldn’t quite be called a smile and realized his own mistake, a wave of heat running up his neck to settle on his face. That’s what you get for spending your entire childhood interacting more with old ruins than with people. “Hell’s teeth, what kind of sorry introduction is that? What I meant to say, of course, is that I’m Jake English.”

“Yes,” the other boy agreed, and though Jake wasn’t sure if he was mocking him or attempting to make a friendly joke, he couldn’t help grinning in response.

Really, it’s hard _not_ to become best friends after a first meeting like that. Especially as the eight of them were immediately dealt their very own special mission and informed they were frequently to work independently with each other. At the time, it had certainly felt like fate.

Had it felt like that to Dirk too? Did he actually believe in things like that? Even after years of friendship, it can be so hard to tell with Dirk, who will pretend to take so many things seriously that he doesn’t give a hooting fuck about, and then will turn right around and downplay things he’s seriously passionate about. Him and his brother both, but it’s a lot more transparent when Dave does it.

He’d simultaneously downplayed and been painfully obvious about his feelings for Jake, if such a thing was even possible. On one hand, he’d never said a word about it for so long, perhaps in the interest of attempting to retain a professional relationship. On the other hand, he hadn’t exactly been shy about alluding to it, and neither had the infuriating AI brain-twin android he’d created. Nor had he done much to hide the mounting tension between him and Jane, which was how Jake had been clued in about _her_ feelings too. At least, he’d assumed that to be the reason, knowing full well that he wasn’t always the most perceptive of fellows. It had seemed to explain a lot... right up until the point when Jane suddenly seemed to lose all interest in him right after Jade’s accident.

He wasn’t exactly hurt by that; he’s fairly certain now that he’d been more relieved than disappointed. It was just frustrating, as he suddenly once again understood jack shit.

For a majority of all this time, he’d felt like it was an inevitability that he and Dirk would end up together. He’d given up on contemplating if it actually was what he wanted, since it appeared as if it would happen regardless. When Jake thinks about it now, with Dirk’s breath gently ghosting against his face, it seems like such an irresponsible way of thinking about it, so reckless with both his own and his best friend’s feelings. But that’s how he’d seen it.

Then all at once, a lot of things had transpired in rapid succession, most of which he had no explanation for still. The mysterious destruction of Dirk’s android, for one thing, and the subsequent transference of the AI into their ship. While it was quite a bear to deal with as a ship computer, it meant that it wasn’t constantly shouldering in on literally any interaction Dirk had with anyone. That certainly removed some of the feeling that he was being herded towards an inescapable conclusion.

This had coincided with... well, _something_ happening to Dave, something which had made him difficult to deal with, cut off and dangerously volatile. Dirk refused to talk about it - they all did - but Jake could see how much it burdened him. Suddenly, his best friend was depending on him in a way which was different than before; in the weeks that followed he was much less demanding and more... vulnerable.

Then there was that whole awful affair with Jade being taken over by the damn Green Sun Corporation, and Rose getting trapped in the cargo ship that plowed right into that bastard Doc Scratch’s base of operations. He’d gone after her without thinking, and it was also without thinking he’d physically thrown her onto the teleport pad, reaching outside it to operate it. The whole thing happened so fast, he hadn’t even for a moment contemplated what the consequences might be, that’s the sad and not very heroic truth. And as they had reappeared in front of the majority of their friends, there had been a moment when his brain somehow hadn’t registered that he was now missing a limb. So he’d stepped forward in relief to greet them... and covered Dirk from head to toe in his blood.

He can’t remember much after that, as the blood loss quickly robbed him of his sensibilities. But he remembers staggering forwards helplessly, only to find Dirk’s strong arms catching him. He remembers the stunned, _“No,”_ breathed into his ear, and then hitting the ground when Dirk, too, seemed to lose his footing. Dirk, who had always seemed incapable of making an involuntary movement, who always landed on his feet.

He’s sure that he had felt hot tears on his neck, heard the scrape of a choked sob, and then Dirk’s voice made raw and frantic by panic, calling for Jane over the communication gear. Then... nothing.

That’s how they’d ended up here. Recovery from the wound was going to take quite some time, and there were murderous and clever agents out there intent on their deaths, so a remote refuge had seemed like a good plan. Jane was tending to his recovery, Dirk to his prosthesis. As for the others... well, presumably they were there for the other reasons Dirk had mentioned, although Jake has no idea what those are. Perhaps Rose is recuperating from her accidental brush with death... but for this long? It’s all so blasted confusing, and no one seems all that eager to enlighten him.

The important part right now is that when he sat down to talk to Dirk about his feelings last night, to his surprise Jake found that the feeling of inevitability had gone missing. There was no smug android to bully him with insincere-yet-pointed overtures, and the Dirk in front of him no longer seemed like the impenetrable fortress he did before. He seemed hesitant, picking his words slowly and awkwardly, instead of spitting them out at the pace of the usual speedy drawl. Jake could still see the vulnerability of the guy who worried himself sick about his brother but couldn’t talk about it, the genuine affection of the guy who had panicked to see Jake wounded, the care of the guy who was asleep in a chair right next to his bed when he woke up in the medical bay. All those aspects of Dirk were there right then, had always been there, and Jake realized then that he owed them both more than to simply pretend like he had no choice.

It had still completely blindsided him when he’d suddenly decided to just kiss the man, and apparently it had done the same to Dirk. But it actually felt good to take charge for a change. He knows he’s not a leader now, not a hero; no matter what people call him, he knows the truth. But at least he’s brave enough to do this, and to do it for the right reasons.

Even so, it had been downright alarming how fast Dirk had folded backwards with him on top, how quickly he seemed to relinquish control completely. Enough so that Jake had stopped, asking timidly if this really was okay. If he’s to be honest, he’d been more than a bit relieved when Dirk rolled his eyes and wrapped his legs hard around his waist, ordering him not to ask stupid questions. There was taking charge and then there was flying blind, after all. It was nice to have a copilot who seemed to know what the devil he was doing.

“So, are you going to keep staring like that forever? Not that it’s not flattering, but your slack-jawed admiration is getting embarrassing at this point.”

Jake starts with the realization that Dirk is now awake, bumping their foreheads together painfully. “Argh! Gosh friggin darn it, Dirk.” He rubs his head, giving his best friend a put upon look. “I was somehow hoping, in vain I realize now, that being your boyfriend would spare me from that kind of fickle malarkey.”

“...Nah.” There is a moment of practically audible hesitation, and Dirk’s voice is slightly less unflappable when he speaks again. “So... we’re boyfriends?”

“Well, yes! I mean, I assumed as much.” Jake feels a bit hot under the collar, being asked to be the one to define their relationship now. Metaphorically, of course, because as he’s becoming more and more aware of by the second, he’s in fact not wearing a stitch of clothing. “Give a man some bloody credit, Dirk. I wouldn’t just go around kissing someone who I know has such ardent and deeply held feelings for me if I wasn’t planning to- to-“

“-to make an honest man out of me?”

“Yes... In a manner of speaking, that is.”

Dirk raises one eyebrow, propping his head up on one hand. “Is that what you call what happened last night? Shit dude, you didn’t even buy me dinner.”

Fuck it all blind, now his face is practically on fire and Dirk most definitely did that on purpose. He’s so pleased with himself too, blast him. “Well, by gum, I suppose that next time when we start getting a bit frisky, I’m supposed to immediately stop and offer to treat you to whatever high-class establishment your heart desires! Is that what you want?”

Dirk makes an incredulous little sound. “I can’t believe you just seriously used the work ‘frisky’ with impunity. Congratulations, now I suddenly feel slightly dirty - not because I’m lying here with a sore ass, but because I appear to have molested someone’s actual grandpa.”

Jake is about to offer a stern rebuttal, perhaps including a few choice words on the subject of this not being even remotely suitable pillow talk, but another concern overtakes these ones. “Ah, you’re- you’re not in too much pain, are you? I tried not to be too-“

He’s cut short by Dirk waving his hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Did you hear me complaining?”

“Well, no. But you never do that, regardless of what’s happening! I just thought I’d ask.”

“... Fair. Well, for the purpose of making this as clear as I possibly can, I have no regrets about a single thing that happened last night. If you open any suitably x-rated dictionary on the page of enthusiastic consent, you’ll find a picture of you putting your dick in me. Got it?”

Why is he like this? “Y-You didn’t have to put it like- That was thoroughly- _Auuughhh_ ”

Dirk sighs, reaching out and running his knuckles carefully across Jake’s cheek. It’s such a surprisingly gentle gesture, it stops him dead in his tracks, gaping at Dirk. “Sorry. I’m not actually trying to make fun of you for being considerate, as inconceivable as that might sound. I’m just- Well, fuck, I’m just a lot better at talking about dicks than how I feel.”

Jake sighs then, and after a moment of dithering he leans in and rests his head gently against Dirk’s chest. His arms settle around him after literally no hesitation at all, and at least that makes the whole situation feel a little more natural. “Strewth, I already knew as much. But I suppose I’m man enough to deal with it.”

“Good.” A beat. “Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

Kanaya is already awake when Rose opens her eyes, sitting up in bed with her embroidery in her lap. Apparently some kindly soul had put some of her personal items in here. She had explained that she was more used than most trolls to being awake during daylight, but that the quick transition these last weeks had nonetheless disturbed her sleep patterns. Rose wonders how long she has been awake, but it feels invasive to ask somehow.

Maybe that’s a silly thought, all things considered; Rose isn’t sure. She leans her chin in her hand, regarding the troll with interest. She’s still not wearing any clothes, just her blanket pulled up to her hips, so there is plenty of new things to study, now that she’s not preoccupied. Kanaya’s skin, which earlier had seemed paler than that of other trolls, now looks more or less exactly the same with her strange bioluminescence subdued. The shapes of her limbs seem a bit off, and after a moment or two Rose concludes that it’s because she’s looking for the familiar outline of muscles and bone which define a human form, but the shapes look slightly different. Not surprising, since it would be strange if troll internal anatomy overlapped entirely with that of humans. They’re not even mammals, after all.

Speaking of which, Rose is interested to find that Kanaya does indeed have shapes which read almost exactly as breasts even with her clothes off, with only a few differences. Obviously there are no nipples, because what would an insectoid life-form that doesn’t even raise its own young do with those? She’d also noticed that they seemed firmer, as if consisting less of fatty tissue and more of muscle... or some other form of tissue, filling some other purpose.

There are stark green markings on the sides of her torso; a very pleasing contrast against her skin, Rose finds. She naturally doesn’t have a belly button, but there is something else there instead, just a little bit off-center. Rose reaches out her hand slowly, giving Kanaya ample time to avoid it or stop it, but although her movements still and she glances down, she otherwise makes no move at all.

Rose gently rubs her fingers over the slightly lumpy tissue, some of it a paler grey than the rest of the skin, and some of it shifting in green. It’s not exactly hard to understand what it is; she has seen plenty of the human equivalent. Even so, it seems polite to ask. “A scar?” she inquires, gently running her fingertips along the edge of it and noticing how Kanaya shivers in response.

“Yes,” she replies, her voice matter-of-fact and just a little bit testy, though Rose can tell that the irritation isn’t directed at her. “Years ago a series of events led us to be stranded on a small research station on an asteroid. At the age we were at the time... well, young trolls are fairly volatile even during the best of circumstances, and those were certainly not that. As we were starting to run low on resources and energy for the oxygen synthesizer, the situation grew a tad... fraught. One of our friends panicked and brought forth the suggestion that we ought to kill off the lowbloods so that the higher castes would survive until rescue arrived.” Her lips tighten. “I disagreed.”

Rose mentally flips through the deck of Kanaya’s friends whom she had made a point of interacting with at the start of the festivities last night. It’s hardly a very challenging mental exercise. “What was his name, now... Tall, talks with a strange accent, absolutely tried to hit on me? Ah yes. Eridan. Am I right?”

“How could you possibly tell?” She rolls her wide-set eyes, and Rose feels proud of apparently having afflicted her with this much sarcasm in such a short while. “Yes, that is correct. He tried to use his stupid ostentatious gun to shoot Karkat, and I...” She sighs. “Well, I jumped in front of him. I received the brunt of the beam, at least for long enough for Feferi to club Eridan senseless with a one wheel device someone had left lying about.” Her lips quirk in a tart expression. “You could say it was a fairly dramatic break-up.”

“... Pale quadrant?”

“Yes.” Kanaya shrugs, and her shoulders move strangely, as if hinged differently from a human’s somehow. “Normally, I imagine I would have died from that wound. In a sense, I did die - or at least got really close, which is how my abilities as a Rainbow Drinker awakened.” She pulls a sour little face. “Just in time for me to help prevent someone else from murdering our entire party. I did mention what happens to Gamzee in the absence of Sopor Slime, did I not?”

“It does indeed seem like a precarious situation to be in. But... they are still your friends? Even after what happened?”

Kanaya looks uneasy. “You have to understand, we’re a naturally violent species. It is true that some of us have done things which might disgust someone who belongs to a more social species, but for us that kind of behavior is encouraged.” She bites her lip, shaking her head. “No, it’s not even true to say it’s an inevitable part of who we are, that is just more highblood propaganda, but it _is_ a poison which runs especially deep in our society. It will take a lot of time and patience to remedy what has been endemic in our species for so long. Until then... it would not be entirely right to simply reject those that fall victim to the indoctrination we all have been subject to. If we do not believe they can change, or at the very least control themselves, how can we hold such beliefs for our entire culture?”

It all comes out in one big rush, and Rose listens carefully, because this feels like it might be important. This isn’t just idle speculation, but rather some firmly held beliefs. It’s fairly clear from the way Kanaya’s cheeks color as well, her breath catching slightly as if she’s said too much. Within troll society, Rose imagines that what she just heard would be considered taboo in more ways than one. So she soothingly runs two fingers up Kanaya’s chest, her hand coming to rest gently against her sternum.

“Don’t worry, I have no stake in troll politics - _yet_.” She smiles slightly as the emphasis makes Kanaya starts, playfully tapping a finger against her skin. “And if I did, I suspect I would agree with your position. If nothing else, a married couple is supposed to present a united front if at all possible.” She is quiet for a moment, doodling nonsense shapes with the tips of her fingers. “I agree more generally too, about giving people a second chance even after they- hmm, shall I say attempt violent and potentially harmful actions? About not blaming people for being a product of their own upbringing, certainly.”

Kanaya looks a little bit startled. “Forgive me for saying so, but you speak as if you have experienced similar situations. From my research, I would’ve assumed that situations like this would arise with less frequency among humans. I found it... interesting, the way you seem to condemn violence so completely.”

Rose can’t help smiling, though the gesture is tinged in rather grim amusement. “Well, I imagine your forays into human history have, perforce, been rather specific and narrow.” She follows that with an offhand little shrug. “It’s true that human values and ideals are vastly different from yours, and many of us do indeed strive to uphold them as best we can. But we’re not perfect by any means. Often, we end up falling rather short of what we want to be.”

“I... think I understand. It’s the same with us, only the other way around. Some of us simply are not cut out for a life where cruelty is a necessity.”

“Mm. I might not agree with it to the degrees to which troll society takes it, but it’s not as if it is untrue. A bit of cruelty is sometimes needed.” She laughs softly, not entirely happily. “But the problem with thinking like that is of course that a lot of very bad people have used similar arguments to justify truly monstrous things. At least troll society makes no secret of that it’s the right of the strong to do as they please. Among humans, it’s a lot more insidious.”

Kanaya regards her solemnly, then puts her embroidery aside and scoots closer across the rumpled sheets until their legs brush together, their hips bump. She slides an arm under Rose’s waist, splaying her fingers against the small of her back. It’s a comforting gesture, and Rose doesn’t know what to think of it, isn’t certain what little bit of darkness or hurt had showed on her face to make Kanaya react in such a way. She strikes out for something more general, less personal.

“I mean, look at this colony. It’s relatively new, all things considered, but what happens the moment a group of us are isolated in a fairly harsh environment?” She leans her face against Kanaya’s chest, gazing out through the window. “So much of the progress we have made starts draining away, and old superstitions and predispositions rear their ugly heads. We revert to the old and tried without actually considering whether or not it was _right_.”

“I imagine that is a persistent ill that befalls all sentient creatures which form some form of societies,” Kanaya murmurs, tentatively running a hand through her hair. It’s a pleasant sensation, and Rose has no issues with leaning into it, humming softly in appreciation. “But if we did not believe that we could change, what would be the point? We might as well keep wriggling around in the mucus of the hatching dens and never leave.”

Rose laughs then, more genuinely this time. “That’s a metaphor that needs a bit more work from a mammalian perspective, but I see your point.” She sighs, nuzzling against Kanaya’s neck with her temple. “Perhaps we ought to table all discussions of philosophy for now? I fear things have taken an unfortunately dolorous tone for the very first day of our marriage.”

Kanaya doesn’t offer a verbal reply, only keeps threading her fingers through Rose’s hair, the hand on her back moving in small, soothing circles. That’s good enough, really.

 

* * *

 

There’s a sun beam hitting him right in the face, and it’s nice and warm but also so _bright_. Dave considers turning over in bed, but his head is throbbing and he doesn’t really feel like it. He’s not feeling nearly as shitty as he’d expected, though.

Wait, why was he expecting to feel shitty? That’s right, he got drunk off his ass, didn’t he? He remembers John fussing over him - oh, right, he gave him water and pretzels and even an enormous pickle. What a magnificent bastard. That must be why Dave isn’t nearly as hung over as he probably deserves. He’s just got a moderate headache and a case of mild nausea, and also his mouth feels kind of sticky and weird. That’s not too terrible. He can manage it.

Sooo... why did he get so drunk again?

That’s when Karkat makes a weird klicking, grumbling sound and wraps his arms tighter around Dave, and he realizes that the troll is in fact straight up on top of him. Uh. Okay. Wow. He peeks slightly through his eyelashes, flinching in the blinding light, but accepting it as the price he has to pay to assess the situation. Yep. Not only is Karkat on top of him, but he’s clinging to him like a barnacle with all available limbs, arms flung around his neck and shoulder, and both legs tangled with Dave’s.

He’s pretty certain that when they both went to sleep, they were on the opposite sides of the bed from each other. What with the awkwardness of the whole bucket conversation, it had seemed best to just try to get unconscious as soon as possible. Considering Karkat’s reaction to that, too, it seems incredibly unlikely that he’d decided to grope Dave while he was sleeping. Unless he’s literally the best actor Dave has ever met or something, and that seems highly unlikely.

So he’s probably just the most intense sleep cuddler he’s met instead, and that’s really saying something too, what with John always ending up drooling on his shoulder when they had to bunk together on missions. Is Karkat...? Yeeep, there are faint red smears of troll drool on Dave’s chest now. Nice.

Shit, but it’s actually kind of cute? Karkat isn’t all that heavy, so it’s not like he’s being smothered by him or anything, and it’s kind of nice to be held like this. Although... damn, he’s glad he doesn’t appear to have had one of his nightmares during the night, because he has _no_ damn clue how he’d react to waking up with someone on top of him then. He’s pretty sure that it’s frowned upon to kick your new spouse clean across the room right when you wake up - or, well, at any time. Don’t kick your spouse across the room. This has been a really fucking obvious PSA, kids.

Maybe he should tell Karkat about the nightmares and everything? Okay, but has he considered the counter proposal: Maybe he can try to never talk about it ever and just... gag himself before going to bed? He could claim that it’s a human custom and not weird at all. It _might_ work, right?

He’s quite ready to think about something else, so he gazes down curiously at Karkat. His mouth is slightly open, and he’s making a very faint whirring noise which Dave supposes is like the troll version of snoring. It kind of makes him wonder what they really sound like, without the gross translation thingies activated. Maybe he’ll try to find out later.

Between his black lips his teeth are visible, straight and sharp and tainted the very faintest hue of pink, probably since his saliva is red. His tongue appears to be dark grey from what little Dave can see of it, also with the same slight pink tint to it. Weird. He’s not honestly sure if the weirdest part is how different the trolls are, or all the ways in which they are in fact alike - how does it make sense for insect people to have tongues, after all? Maybe it’s a combination of the two. Like how with his eyes closed, Dave could almost trick himself into thinking Karkat is human, albeit one with a bit of a fever. You keep thinking they’re basically the same, until some weird and random detail trips you up. It’s wild.

In the interest of science, he slowly reaches up and cautiously ruffles Karkat’s glossy black hair. That’s strange, too. Really rather stiff and bristly, and if you stroke against rather than with it, it kind of prickles your skin? But the surface of the actual strands is silky, the texture nice and thick as Dave buries his fingers there. He wonders if the hair of different trolls feel different, just like it does for different humans. Probably, right? Kanaya’s hair looks so well-behaved and slick, and Feferi’s hair looks basically like a big, fluffy black cloud.

Then there’s the horns. Dave pokes one slightly, then runs his finger gently across the smooth surface. A bit less like horn and a bit more like the surface of a beetle’s shell, maybe? He thinks the former is probably a bit rougher than the latter, and honestly there is hardly any friction at all, not to mention that the sheen to the surface is borderline iridescent. It’s really quite pretty, this close up.

“So, firstly, good morning I guess? Secondly, what the fuck?”

Whoops. He’s awake. “Shouldn’t I say the same? I mean, you’re the one on top of me, not the other way around. I think gently poking your horns is fairly mild compared to literally pinning a dude to the mattress with your body - that’s in the rules of sports, I’m pretty sure.”

Karkat props himself up until he can glare down at him. He looks sleepy and bedraggled, and the hair on the side of his head that was pressed against Dave’s chest is smushed down and sticking out at weird angles. This close up, he can feel the strange vibration in Karkat’s chest when he speaks, hear the faint little clicks and and hums behind his speech - wordless sounds that can’t be translated into something human, Dave guesses. “Yes because clearly an involuntary action that happens while I sleep is exactly the same as something you chose to do because your ability to control your fucking impulses is actually slightly more pathetic than my will to put up with your bullshit this late- _fuck_ , I mean early in the morning.” He raises his hand and touches one horn a bit self-consciously, and Dave notices that his nails have the same yellow-to-orange tint as his horns. “What’s wrong with my horns?”

Dave raises his eyebrows slightly. Damn, the room is still so bright. Where the fuck are his shades? “Nothing, dude. It’s just that in case you hadn’t noticed, I am lamentably hornless. I’ve never known the joy of horns, and neither has anyone in my direct vicinity. So since you were getting all comfortable on my chest anyway, I thought I’d check what they feel like. That’s all.”

“Oh.” That appears to derail him a bit. “I guess that’s... not too strange.” He frowns a bit, reaching out and running his fingers across Dave’s scalp where, supposedly, his horns would be if he was a troll.

“D’you think maybe I’m hiding them there somewhere? Because let me tell you, this flimsy blond shit growing out of my head couldn’t hide so much as a blade of grass, let alone two bright, candy corn colored horns sticking out of my skull.”

“Fuck you.” Karkat runs his hand more slowly through his hair this time, feeling the skin with the pads of his fingers. “It’s just weird, that’s all. There really is nothing there at all. Not even a pair of stunted horn beds or something.”

“Yeah no, we never had any. Like we ain’t the evolution of some kind of super smart gazelle or some shit like that, slowly losing our useless horns over time because no one ever does any head sparring anymore. We’re just straight-up apes, and the only stuff that might become obsolete over time is our excess hair.”

Karkat frowns, reaching out to rub his thumb across Dave’s chin. “You mean this?”

Dave snorts. “Man, that’s just because I was so strung up yesterday, I forgot to shave. It’s pretty generous of you to call it hair. It’s more like a mild skin condition. Hell, even if I tried to grow it for months, all you’d have would be some kind of scraggly lichen that may or may not dissolve in rainwater.” He lifts his left leg - the one Karkat isn’t directly on top of - as far up as it will go. Which is pretty far, considering he’d been taught early to kick people in the face and do weird contortionist shit to fit into air vents. “I was more talking about this.”

Karkat glances sideways, and then blinks a bit in surprise. “On your... leg?”

“Yeah, sure. Leg, arm, armpit, crotch... but my arms are relatively bare, and I wasn’t gonna hold up the other two to your face, was I?”

Karkat colors at his words, but his hand is already reaching out as if he’s hypnotized, fingers running gently through the wispy blond down. Dave shivers, thinking maybe it was a mistake to invite this while Karkat is sitting square on top of him. “...All your hair is so soft,” Karkat murmurs, which means his voice is at a normal speaking volume for once.

“I guess? Mostly it’s just useless and limp. Blame being the genetic descendant to the two whitest people in the universe. The only way to get it to do anything is to spend _hours_ on it like Dirk. I mostly just let it be.”

Karkat isn’t really listening. He’s still brushing his fingers across Dave’s leg, hence his nervous babbling. When he gets to the knee he falters for a moment, then slowly allows his hand to glide down Dave’s thigh. His breath catches, his heart starting to beat faster, and the further down his thigh that hand gets the more intensely he’s feeling Karkat’s weight on top of him and-

“ _Whoa_!” He grabs Karkat’s hand in his, hoping his voice doesn’t sound quite as breathy and weird as it feels. “Okay, I know I literally initiated this, but uh... maybe not any further down? Especially not when you’re kind of sitting right on my beef whistle, you know? Unless you want shit to get awkward in what you would call a bucket kind of way really damn fast.”

“What? _Oh_.” Again the floundering pause, and then Karkat looks like he’s been genetically spliced with some breed of beet root. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to- I mean- Why did you- I was just- _Fuck_.” His eyes are inevitably drawn down, and Dave is glad he cut him short early enough that he’s only at half mast right now. Karkat _probably_ can’t notice that, or he doesn’t know what it means. Either way, the troll suddenly rolls off him so fast, he just keeps going until he rolls off the bed and hits the floor with a loud thump and a string of curses.

Dave reaches out to the bedside table and grabs his shades, putting them on and staring up at the canopy as Karkat gets to his feet and stomps around looking for clothes. Hopefully they’ll have breakfast up for them soon. Until then... maybe a quick cold wash. In lack of a shower, there’s the pump down in the courtyard. Desperate times, desperate measures, and so on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, someone had to get laid during the wedding night, and lbr it wasn’t going to be the people actually getting married.


	10. Tick tock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two rooftop conversations, wherein Jade deals admirably with boys being difficult, and both the feelings of robots and the confusing ins and outs of teenage sexuality are discussed.

The sunrise over the desert had been truly magnificent. Jade swings her legs slowly, perched on one of the taller rooftops in town. She hadn’t had much of a chance to spend time on the planet before they were off on another mission again. Everything had happened in such a blur back then, and honestly she’d still been so shaken by being taken over by bad guys, it had been hard to take anything in. She kind of wishes that she couldn’t remember anything she did while in that state, that she could think of everything she did as happening to Another Jade, but it doesn’t work like that. Since her brain is part computer now, she has a perfect record of every horrifying event that transpired, every cruel thing she said. It’s all there if she wishes to access it.

She tries really hard not to.

She has however gone through every memory, every file, every part of herself while obsessively looking for any sign that they might still be able to take her over. She hadn’t been the only one, in fact, and so far not a single trace could be found. The unsettling dreams have stopped completely, and she no longer has those strange intrusive thoughts. Presumably, she is safe.

Even so... it is hard to disregard the fact that all her computerized parts are in fact Green Sun products. Their damn logo is even printed on some of the parts, invisible to the human eye, but naturally not to hers. Just another smug, shitty joke from the smuggest and shittiest joker of all. Another way of leaving a mark on her, as if his deranged laughter in her head when Rose’s ship crashed into his moon base wasn’t bad enough. It had continued even as she had been able to _feel_ his body burning, until the very last vestige of his mind was consumed.

On one hand, that hopefully means that he’s dead for good. On the other, it’s hard to convince herself that the last part of him that is alive doesn’t exists within her now. Lousy goddamn psychics.

She’s been told that it’s different now, that there are security routines installed in her brain that will ‘clamp down like the asscheeks of the very hardest of gym bros while doing some serious lifting’ if anyone tries to take her over again. But even being a cyborg, that is all a little bit too abstract to be actually comforting.

“It seems you are doubting the security of your brain, and/or the tightness of that hypothetical assclench, despite my assurances. I would say I’m hurt, but my emotional response is much more nuanced and complex than that, and we both know it.”

Jane blinks, then frowns at the empty air in front of her. “ _Hal_! That is so rude. You can’t just go through my thoughts whenever you feel like it. That’s a serious invasion of privacy!”

“Grab a wrench and untwist those nipples at once, Harley. It’s not like I would ever waste even the minuscule fraction of my attention it would require to constantly keep tabs on your thoughts. You’re by far the least boring organic out there due to your substantial upgrade, but not even you are that interesting.” His voice in her head, probably by ironic design, is like a spookily distorted version of Dirk’s. “Besides, if I could seriously monitor your thoughts in secret at all time, the routines I installed in you wouldn’t be doing their job. From the moment I connected to you, I had exactly ten seconds to make myself known, or even I would probably have been utterly annihilated. I spoke up after exactly 9.9999999 seconds - and because you are what you are, you’re capable of quite a lot of thoughts in that timespan.”

It’s part wheedling flattery, part mockery and part genuinely friendly appreciation - but it’s hard to tell how much there is of each. Jade sighs, rolling her eyes. “Fine! I suppose you getting ten second snippets of my thoughts from time to time is something I can put up with, compared to the alternative. So...?”

“So why did I contact you.”

“Yes!”

“Oh, that wasn’t a question. According to my calculations, that was the only logical continuation of your sentence.”

Jade snorts loudly. “Your calculations my ass! You’re being twee now. Just answer already!”

On the part of her field of vision that she thinks of as the ‘screen’, where Hal’s words are appearing in print as she speaks to him, a new viewport opens. It shows a reel of several movie characters shrugging, one after the other. Jade can’t help laughing, even though he’s being such a difficult customer on purpose.

“Just wanted to know how the wedding went. It’s all so primitive down there, there were hardly even any cameras present that were advanced enough for me to hack. And the troll technology is proving to be... a challenge.” He sounds annoyed, but Jade thinks it’s probably good for him to not have everything go his way. “Call it brotherly concern... for a given value of both ‘brotherly’ and ‘concern’.”

It’s hard to know if he’s actually sincere about caring, or if he just wants to amuse himself with gossip, but Jade doesn’t mind either way. “It went well enough, I think. Rose seems to be having fun without anything immediately dangerous happening, so that’s nice. I don’t think just living the simple life and taking it easy suited her, to tell the truth.”

“Probably not. Even if I try to dumb down my thinking to the level of supposedly clever humans, that still sounds nauseatingly dull.”

“Not necessarily! This place is actually really beautiful,” she turns her head around so he can get a good view, “and even if it’s all pretty simple, it sounds like there’s always a lot to do. I kind of find it relaxing already.”

“As an entity with no need for either beauty or relaxation, I’ll take your word for it.”

“Fiiiine, be that way.” She shrugs lightly. “I think it’s really done Dave a lot of good. He looks like he’s been eating and sleeping better... he’s a lot more relaxed than before too. I know that awful man has still been around, but I think he mostly sticks around their mom now and leaves Dave alone.”

“You mean their uncle? I’m still not sure why you all suddenly dislike him so much. Most of his actions seem very logical to me.”

“No! I’m not going to debate this with you again. I’m having a nice morning, and I’m not going to ruin it by talking about that asshole, _thank you_.”

There is a pause during which there is no reply, and Jade is willing to bet anything that Hal is going to pretend that the previous exchange didn’t happen in that passive-aggressive way of his. She’s proven right only a moment later. “So, it all went off without a hitch despite the circumstances? That seems unlikely.”

“Well, I didn’t say that. It’s still pretty awkward, them having to marry strangers who are also aliens. Rose seems to get along with her spouse pretty well, but I think it’s still really weird for Dave. He actually got pretty drunk during the party.” She sighs, frowning up at the wispy clouds drifting past far above, even as a small part of her brain analyzes their structure and composition, throwing up recorded atmospheric data for Muspell, the planet. “I don’t imagine it’s actually because the alien is a guy like John thinks - or at least, I don’t think it’s the major concern. Dave is just pretty sensitive about letting people that close, for any reason.”

“Spoken as his understanding yet exasperated ex girlfriend.”

“And as his friend. Mostly that, actually! I mean, he wasn’t my boyfriend for that long.” She presses her lips together through his pointed silence, until finally she rolls her eyes and groans. “Okay, okay, that _was_ part of the reason why it didn’t work out. Back then, there were all these things that obviously bothered him, but every time I tried to talk about it, he’d make it into a joke. It was just impossible to get him to be serious, even when I could see that he was really upset. At least the- the sort of breakdown seems to have made him a bit more willing to talk about stuff.”

“Having feelings sounds incredibly impractical. I’m glad I, a robot who became a ship, will never experience anything like that.”

“Woooow, you’re so full of shit, Mr Threw Himself Heroically In Front Of Dirk To Save His Life.”

“Eh. I was just reasonably sure that with him gone, there would be no one to stop one of you from deactivating me with a sledgehammer. Probably Jake or John.”

“That’s total bullshit and you know it. Dirk told me what you said when you thought you were going to die.”

“Yeah, I remember. ‘Rosebud’. Very poignant.”

“No, not that. Before that.”

Another long silence, during which Jade listens the chittering of the local fauna and the slow bustle of the town waking up below her. “Harley-“

“I won’t pass it on. It was just that right after I woke up with all my new robot parts, I didn’t even feel like a real person anymore. I told Dirk about it since he was the one who... installed them, and I was kind of taking out my anger on him. And he told me. Because if you were a real person... I had to be one too.”

Another long moment of silence. Jade waits patiently for a while, and then patience goes missing. He’s probably just sulking. “Look, I think it’s best if we drop this subject for now. Maybe we can talk about it later, okay? People are starting to wake up, and I think I see Dave down there.” She squints, even if it’s not necessary since her left eye zooms in automatically after a moment or two. “...Why is he so wet?”

“It seems you would like to know why your ex boyfriend is so wet. Since even my most advanced calculations offer no answer to that - or indeed to the illogical actions of biological lifeforms in general - I will refrain from making a ‘that’s what he/she/they said’ joke, and let you get on with finding out why for yourself.” Oh yeah, he’s _definitely_ sulking.

“Good idea! Later, Hal.”

There is no answer. He has disconnected.

 

* * *

 

One good thing about the water from the pumps, since they are hooked up to deposits of paleowater a long way beneath the desert, is that it’s icy cold. Admittedly it’s not entirely easy to keep from shrieking in an undignified manner while dousing himself, and the long rant on the theme of ‘fuck this’ that he settles on instead is only marginally more respectable. But at least it is a 100% certain bonerkill - or indeed ½boner kill.

The weird looks he gets from a couple of passersby helps too.

He’s using his shirt to towel off his hair a bit when he gets addressed from almost right above his head, and just about jumps out of his skin. Maybe one day he won’t instinctively reach for a gun regardless of the situation, but it sure as fuck isn’t this day. All he gets is a handful of wet pants, since he wasn’t about to strip those off in the middle of the courtyard.

“Dave! Ohhh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Jade crouches down where she’s perched on some of the facade decorations on the building, looking sheepish. “I guess I should’ve gotten down before calling out.”

Forcing himself to relax, Dave shakes his head in reply. “It’s cool. I should’ve remembered about the mysterious ways of the elusive android furry in the wild. If you get a bit further up, maybe find somewhere a guy who doesn’t have robo-glutes can relax too, I can join you in a bit.”

She giggles, nodding, and ascends at speed back up to the roof where, presumably, she came from. Dave raises his eyebrows slightly, impressed. She’d always been fast and nimble before, of course, but the inhuman speed at which she moves now is something else. He hadn’t really had much time to assess the changes in her much, other than in an ‘oh shit, she’s gonna kill me’ kind of way when she was mind-controlled by that cue ball-headed narcissist.

Sliding his shades back on, he then stuffs his shirt in his bag and flings it over his shoulder, mentally measuring the distances for a moment before darting forward. Making his way up the facade is easy; there are a lot of handholds, and he’d always enjoyed the parkouring that frequently ended up as a part of his job. He’d never even minded that part of his training as a kid... much. He’d minded the part where his uncle was apparently incapable of grasping the concept of a safety net. The actual _climbing_ had been fine, the falling not so much.

Thankfully the roofs don’t slope too much - something about being designed to gather up what little rainwater there is while at the same time getting as much out of the solar tiles as possible - and Jade has found a ledge above a couple of windows that is almost flat. The dark surfaces are hot to the touch even at this hour, so Dave pulls out his shirt and puts it on the roof before sitting down, just to add another layer of insulation. Jade doesn’t seem to notice, but then again, he wouldn’t propose to guess how much of her legs are still made of living tissue.

“Sooo,” Jade chirps, tilting her head just like she always does. He tries not to notice how her hair doesn’t move quite naturally, because it is in fact not natural hair. “Why are you so wet? And why outside? Aren’t there facilities inside?”

He tries out the sentence, ‘Oh, my new alien husband accidentally gave me a half chub by stroking my leg hairs for science,’ in his head, and decides he’d rather throw himself off the roof right the fuck now before saying that to anyone, let alone Jade. Naaaaah. “Yeah, but the goddamn hygiene modules get me down. It’s like getting dutch ovened by a machine, and you end up trying not to inhale while the chemicals are sprayed on you like the wettest of soap farts, or you’ll spend the rest of the day with a taste in your mouth like you tongued a well-scrubbed mama’s boy’s asscrack. So even though the fossil water we pump from the ground is colder than all the witches’ tits in the most BDSM possible metal bras within the frigid depths of space, and even though I just used up way too many of my pump tokens in one go... it was still preferable, you dig?”

Jade blinks at him, then snorts loudly, bumping her shoulder against his. It’s the right one, so it feels completely normal. “You’re so weird,” she says, scrunching up her nose slightly. “But okay, you don’t like the hygiene modules, so you went out and dunked yourself in cold water from the pump instead.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s another way of saying it, if you don’t give a shit about poetry. What about the arts, Harley? How quickly you robot people forget about the arts.”

She sticks out her tongue at him, but since she’s laughing at the same time, he doesn’t take it very seriously. Dave bends over to root around in his bag, making a triumphant little noise when he finds the fist-sized, square object he was looking for. “Hey, can you help me with this?” He demonstrates which button to press to get it to dispense a fine mist over his skin. “A thing that the hygiene modules are actually good at is that they spray you down with this sun screen shit at the same time. So just in case, I think I should probably get a refill of that, or end up looking like a sad molting lizard.”

“Sure!” She takes it from him and scoots back a little bit so she can use it on his back. “So, um... how did last night go?”

Dave can’t help it, not when she left herself wide open like that. He glances over his shoulder at her, raises one eyebrow and breaks out his very best deadpan. “Are you asking me if I got laid, Jade?”

”No!” She prods him with her foot, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I would assume you didn’t, since apparently you got really drunk! What was up with that?”

“See, the thing that was up with that...” Dave looks away. “Is that it was stupid and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Dave...” He feels her hands still on his back.

“Look, you don’t have to worry, alright?” He rakes his hand through his damp hair. “I hardly enjoyed any part of that fervent attempt to make an ass of myself, not to mention I’ve still got a headache now. So there definitely won’t be a repeat performance of that particular shitshow. No chance of me becoming another sequel in the saga about how poorly my family deals with alcohol.”

She pats his neck lightly with her free hand as she starts spraying him down again. One of her fingers navigates across one of his many scars without hesitating, and he appreciates her for it. She'd never pried back when they were a couple, perhaps not even noticing that his skin was a bit more fucked up than everyone else's - he hopes that's the case. He hopes she's not beating herself up for not realizing. “Honestly, I was mostly worried about how you were feeling. And, well, your husband? How did he feel about it?”

Dave snorts. “Shit, if he really minded, he’d be kind of a hypocrite, considering he got thoroughly baked on some kind of troll weed pie.”

“...What?”

“Look, I don’t have all the details on their edibles, but I think his huge friend might be the alien version of a stoner, and definitely supplied him with something that made him about as coherent as I was feeling at the time.”

“Oh.” A moment’s pause. “Well that’s... good? I mean, not exactly good, but at least he’s probably not going to be angry with you, right?”

She’s always been so good at finding the most positive spin on things possible, but Dave can’t help making a small amused sound. “I’m pretty sure ‘angry’ is just that guy’s default setting. But yeah, no, he wasn’t judging me for my drunkscapades as such. Just, you know... other stuff. According to him, there appears to be a lot about me which makes for great judgement material. Madness, right? Clearly aliens don’t know greatness when they gaze upon it.”

Jade mutters something under her breath about hating Hal when he’s right, and Dave sends her a sharp look. “Please tell me that smug discount version of my brother isn’t eavesdropping on this conversation.” He feels bad about badmouthing Hal considering what he’d done to him, and the AI being the irrefutable reason why Dirk is still alive. But to be fair, if Hal didn’t keep rubbing that shit in his face at any opportunity he gets, maybe he wouldn’t.

Jade just gives him a disapproving look, but she’s kind enough not to call him out. “No, he’s not. I just spoke to him earlier, that’s all. You know, one robot to another?”

That’s her way of gently reminding him that disparaging Hal’s existence as an actual individual is kind of a dick move when talking to his cyborg friend. Dave rubs his face, and he doesn’t argue with her, but he doesn’t know what to say either. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cover all of his complicated feelings in the matter. It never will.

She remains quiet for a moment, finishing up his back and giving him back the sun screen dispenser so he can do the parts he can actually reach. Edging herself back down next to him, she offers him a kind smile, clearly to let him know that she’s not mad at her. Wow. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t deserve his friends. She’s the only one who wasn’t directly involved when he flipped his shit who knows what happened, probably courtesy of being robo-buddies with someone who was, but she’d never passed it on to Jane or Jake... or anyone else for that matter.

“So,” she says in a tone which clearly signals that she’s switching to a lighter subject and that’s final, “once John stopped trying to keep this whole thing a secret from me - really, that was very silly of both of you! - he asked me my opinion of you getting married to a guy. You know, as your ex girlfriend.” She giggles as Dave groans and almost accidentally sprays sunscreen inside his mouth.

“Goddamn Egbert,” he mutters, wiping the stuff off his lower lip. “He can’t just contain his dorkiness to himself, he has to spread around the embarrassment as well.”

“Yyyeees, I thought it was pretty dumb and I told him so. I mean, I’m not sure what he was expecting me to say! It’s not like having a girlfriend at some point means you’re disqualified from liking guys too.” She tilts her head slightly, giving his shoulder another nudge. “He said you’d told him that you didn’t know for sure if you did. Have you come to any conclusion there?”

Dave thinks about the feeling of Karkat’s fingertips sliding down his thigh, the solid weight of him despite how scrawny he looks, the heat of his body flush against his. The way his body had reacted before he had time to really think of it. Had that been some kind of proof that he’s into guys? Or had it just been a reaction to _anyone_ touching him like that in a good long while, considering it was like what, two years since he and Jade broke up? Shit, he’s nineteen, if he’s going to assume that all the random shit that’s given him boners somehow define his sexuality, then he’s got some severely niche and unfortunate fetishes to deal with.

Not that he minds if he does like dudes, because honestly, who apart from the people in this insane colony cares? But maybe he’d like to know for sure before he... well, he supposes before he hypothetically takes things any further with Karkat? Though that’s an awkward thought that he’d rather not explore right now.

“Nah, not really. I mean, we’ve mostly been trying to figure out if we even like each other, which was awkward enough with the wedding looming over us like some kind of kitschy doomsday countdown.” He finishes spraying down his arms and tucks the sun screen dispenser back in his bag. “That, and dealing with the constant cultural clash. I mean, I’d say if anything turns out to be an issue, it’s probably because he’s an alien, not a guy. What do our ideas of gender even mean to insect aliens that don’t give birth, you know? Do troll dudes have dicks? So do some human girls, so why would that even matter, purely from a determining what corresponds to our own standards perspective? I mean fuck, they have a different language, so ‘male’ and ‘female’ are most likely approximations. They’re probably nothing like us. Do they actually have sexual organs in their feet? Anal teeth? What the fuck is, and I quote, a ‘shame globe’? What’s the deal with buckets?”

Jade is staring at him now. “Um... I don’t know?”

“Of course you don’t. I don’t either. The point I’m trying to make...” Dave flounders, waving a hand aimlessly. “The point- The point is that everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.”

Jade smiles, but a bit uncertainly. “Well, leaving xenobiology and advanced gender studies aside for a minute... how would you feel about dating a human guy?”

Dave makes a weird gesture that combines shaking his head and shrugging at the same time. “I don’t know. It’s just hard to imagine, but I don’t think that says anything about my sexuality because... well, I just don’t think about dating, full stop.”

“Not at all?” Her lips twitch slightly, but Dave just frowns.

“Not really. My whole life was just a long stretch of preparation for joining SKAIA, and once I got there I was busy thinking about missions most of the time.” She raises her eyebrows a bit, and he rolls his eyes. “I mean sure, I’d fuck around and have fun on my spare time, I’m not Dirk levels of tightassed, but I didn’t have enough of it that I could waste it making friends outside our group, you know?”

“I suppose... I mean, I didn’t really do that either. I guess it never felt that important. We would always have each other, you know?”

“Exactly. So even though we were all in the middle of hormonal prime time, the dating pool was pretty slim and we couldn’t all keep pissing in it or it would go rank.”

“Ew, Dave!”

Right. Maybe not something to say to the one person within said dating pool that he had dated. “I mean, uh... you and I, that just kind of happened, you know? At least for me it did. Suddenly you just kissed me out of nowhere and I thought oh, okay, this is actually pretty nice.”

She looks like she is either contemplating laughing in his face or slapping him. “Would you like a bigger shovel?”

“...No, I think I’m digging myself deep enough with the one I’ve got, thanks.”

Laughing it is. At least that’s good. “It wasn’t exactly ‘out of nowhere’ for me, but I think I see what you mean. It wasn’t all that complicated, is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Exactly!” He manages not to actually grin with relief, but he’s grateful that he’s got friends who are good at extracting the intention from his meandering, incomprehensible bullshit. “Boy meets girl, girl eventually clues him in about liking him, they date, boy messes it up... but hopefully not too badly since they keep being friends.”

“You didn’t mess up, Dave,” she sighs, poking his side with a metal digit cold enough to make him shiver. “It just didn’t work out. It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault.”

Since that’s not related to the point he’s trying to make, he refrains from bringing up how his emotional issues were pretty much the main reason why it didn’t work out. “Okay, but the thing is... things with you were still a pretty straightforward. Trying to imagine dating a guy isn’t, since the only guys I really know are my brother, a guy that there was already kind of a line to get into to get a part of, and... well, John. Who is John. And that’s as far as I’m taking that thought, because no. Not that he isn’t attractive... I mean, not that I’ve thought about it, but like... Fuck, what I mean is that I need my best bro without weird invasive thoughts about boning him.” Man, put like that, he supposes he can understand the whole troll things about pale romance a bit better. At least in theory that would mean making sure there’s never any awkward sexual tension getting in the way when you just need someone to be real about feelings with.

Jade giggles, shaking her head. “You always have to make things so complicated, but I see what you mean.” She colors slightly. “So what about just... just sex? I mean, you don’t _have_ to be dating someone...”

“Well yes, obviously. But that just seems kind of weird to me, I guess? Hello, nice to meet you, let me shove my tongue in your ass.” Jade makes a choking sound as a giggle appears to collide with a scandalized yelp, and Dave hurriedly adds: “I mean, not that I judge anyone who does that kind of thing, obviously! I just can’t imagine keeping a straight face while a complete stranger interacts with my dick - I mean, I’d crack up or cringe or something if shit got too serious, or I’d say something weird that would send them running.”

Jade gives him a dryly amused look. “It’s not like you didn’t do those things back when... well, you know.”

“Exactly! That’s my point, though. You already knew me, so like, even if I was a pain your ass, you didn’t immediately get up and leave the first time I blurted out something absurd with my face in your tits.”

She swats him then, and he can’t help flinching. “Ow, Jade, careful with the goods please. I’m still a squishy human, and I don’t feel like explaining bruises shaped like your hand to my new alien husband. I don’t know, I just don’t really feel like we’re at that point in our relationship.”

“Oops. Sorry.” She looks a bit sheepish, gingerly patting his arm. “But I guess I see your point. I haven’t been all that interested in strangers either, not more than once or twice.”

“...How interested was that, then?”

Jade flushes. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

“Well, yeah, that’s why I asked.”

“Well, I’m not telling you, so there.” She gives him a light shove, clearly making sure to control her freaky robot strength this time. “So you’ve never...?”

“Wow, pretty hypocritical to ask that immediately after, don’t you think? But no, apart from losing my virginity to you and the awkward teenage making out-slash-sex that followed, I’ve resigned my dick to majestic solitude until the moment I find someone else worthy enough of the benediction of its touch.”

She just gives him A Look, which he honestly knows he deserves, and he’s actually impressed that she doesn’t fling him off the roof. “ _Any_ way, I guess maybe don’t worry too much about all that then, and just keep trying to figure out if you like him, and in what way? That probably is the best way to go about it, like you said.”

Dave nods, and after a moment or two leans sideways to rest his head on her shoulder. “Thanks. For like... everything I guess, but right now for dealing with whatever weird, mutant shit my stream of consciousness throws up at the shore, gasping and writhing and stuff. I appreciate it.” He glances up at the sun, frowning slightly. “Hey, robot friend, what’s the time?”

Jade pinches him, but not very hard at all. “The time locally is eight dot twelve dot four in the morning, out of a twenty-six hour, five minute and forty second day, rounded off to even hours and adjusted quarter-annually for the sake of conventions.” Her voice goes more flat and inhuman while reciting data. After a moment or two she adds, like an afterthought: “Tick tock.”

Dave doesn’t really worry about that part, though, because he’s already scrambling to his feet. “Shit, I’m late for breakfast. I told Karkat I’d meet him there.”

Jade grins. “You’d better hurry, then!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know every chapter is usually at least three segments, but my god, both Dave and Hal are SO WORDY? These dudes never shut up. Especially Dave.


	11. Good intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s hard to get along and also hard dealing with not getting along, especially when you’re both neurotic fucks with very little in the way of filters.
> 
> It’s also hard when you can’t trust your brain not to make everything worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one took a little longer to write, sorry :P I’ve been a bit tired now that autumn has hit for real, and also I appear to have lost my glasses somewhere. I will try to keep a better pace, though.

It’s a very pleasant day, for all that there’s a bit of urgency in the air. The shared breakfast feels more relaxed than the party last night, and Kanaya spends her time idly listening to other people talking. Rose is engaged in some verbal back-and-forth with Terezi and Vriska, which all of them seem to enjoy in the same way some people enjoy juggling edged weapons for fun. In the same vein, being a spectator to it is both a bit nerve-wracking as well as rather satisfying.

Roxy and her friend - Jane, wasn’t it? - are having a lively discussion with Feferi and Nepeta which involves a lot of loud laughter from Roxy, squeaky ex _cite_ ment from the heiress and expressive gesturing from Nepeta. Jane doesn’t appear quite as rambunctious as the other three, but she nonetheless smiles and laughs with the rest. Equius is sitting close by, no doubt dragged there by Nepeta, but he looks a bit awkward and out of place next to the bubbly vim and enthusiasm that the four of them are positively radiating. Kanaya has to admit that the tableau presented is pretty funny.

It’s really good to see Nepeta looking so happy, all things considered. Kanaya kind of hopes that she’ll get more chances to hang out with the humans, if this is the effect they have on her.

Eridan is talking to the human called Jake, and Kanaya had noticed with fascination how his awkward come-ons at the beginning of the conversation had repeatedly flown completely over the human’s head, until the point where Eridan just... gave up. Now they’re arguing about about cinematography, apparently from the opposing viewpoints of an indiscriminate omnivore and a hideous snob, but not in a particularly rancorous fashion. The one called Dirk is sitting next to them with his chin in his hand, watching the exchange with the same blank expression he consistently wears, though Kanaya notices a possessive arm placed firmly around Jake’s waist.

Next to her, Karkat is tapping the table irritably with his nails. Dave is late.

She hears him by the door before he sees him, apparently in the middle of bickering with someone.

“Daaaave, wait!”

“What?”

“I don’t know, _maybe_ you should put a shirt on?”

“...holy shit, right. Bad enough my pants are wet, I must look like a tool.”

“Yeah, kinda. Here let me... What’s that gross thing on your neck, by the way?”

“What, the creepy translation spider? Didn’t you get one too?”

“Durrrrrr Dave, I’m part computer now. And Alternian is one of the languages I’m programmed to understand.”

“What, really? That weird. I mean, human devices are absolute shit at it still.”

“Well, humans didn’t make my robot parts, now did they?”

“...Oh. Right. Shit, sorry.”

“It’s fine. There, turn around.” A pause. “Good enough. Now go apologize to your husband, okay.”

“I, uh- yeah. Got it.”

Kanaya becomes aware at this point that the reason she could hear the entire exchange so well is that everyone around her has fallen silent and is listening too, eyes either fixed on Karkat or the door. Her friend’s cheeks are bright red under their scrutiny. A muscle under his eye twitches.

Dave walks in, and then stops awkwardly as he encounters an entire room full of people staring at him. “Uh, hi? Damn, I know y’all must’ve been languishing miserably without me, but seriously, it’s kind of sad when you make it so obvious. I mean, shit, I turn up a quarter of an hour late, and no one has anything better to do than to stare with bated breath at the door, hoping for just a glimpse of my chafing, damp pants and my villainously rumpled shirt? Should’ve just left the shirt off to let everyone bask in the glow of my scrawny white chest, I guess.”

The smack next to her has to be Karkat’s face meeting with his hands. As is confirmed by his muffled voice when he speaks next. “Oh my fucking- Is shutting up before you embarrass us both further a thing you could conceivably attempt in your future? And by future I mean right the fuck now, _this_ very instant, before I have to go over there myself and strangle you to death with your own disheveled attire?”

Everyone’s eyes snap back to Dave, as if following the action of a particularly nasty Onslaughtennis duel. He grimaces, pulling at a lock of hair that appears to have gotten stuck in his shades. “Okay, okay, maybe not the best way to start this completely rad apology I had in mind, but to be fair I wasn’t talking to you, you know? Just, fuck, there’s this entire crowd of assholes clearly not minding their own business and they’re kind of throwing me off? And the threats of textile-based violence aren’t doing it for me either, I gotta say.”

“Oh? Oh isn’t it?” Karkat is rising out of his seat now, leaning forward on the table, which he’s gripping hard in both hands. “Well shit everyone, stop the word bangers immediately, the human doesn’t feel like this is doing it for him. Too bad his own repugnant culture has us trapped like this then, because let me tell you, this choo-choo scuttler has only just left the station!”

“No, that’s not- Is this a big deal to you?” He’s raising his eyebrows now, the flat drawl of his voice appearing to grow more nonchalant the louder Karkat gets. “Is it really? You go from ‘welp shit, who’s this douchebag’ to ‘why are you not writing a shitty sonnet where you kiss my ass and tell me how sorry you are that you arrived late for breakfast’ in hardly any time at all? For real? Because I gotta tell you, that’s kind of creepy.”

It’s fascinating to watch, really. From the way Rose has explained it, this strange tension in the air, which reads to Kanaya like the whole thing in front of them is either dangerously close to waxing full pitch, or will be the start of some seriously awkward vacillation... that might just be part of a normal human romance? One that is nominally red, but can contain traces of more or less every other kind of romance as well.

Humans are strange and outrageous creatures.

Karkat’s fists are clenching and unclenching rapidly, and though Kanaya knows that he can indeed be touchy about things like time keeping and organization, she also knows that this isn’t really what it’s about either. It started as irritation at being made to wait, compounded by the attention being paid to him when Dave finally entered, and then escalated far beyond his normal level of background aggravation by Dave acting so flippant. She’d object to that more herself, if it wasn’t so plain that Dave is just trying to compensate for his nervously fiddling hands and restless posture.

Now, she’d venture, Karkat doesn’t know how to act, because he’s probably still thinking about the situation in terms of quadrants. Does he respond to what seems like a caliginous situation in kind, despite knowing that humans don’t observe that kind of courtship? Should he try to turn the exchange more red, and risk looking like he’s flagrantly vacillating already? Or maybe try to defuse, mixing a third quadrant into the mess - and right in front of Gamzee, no less? Or should he let it drop? Kanaya is still confused about human relationships too, but she’s pretty certain that the latter is the wisest move. She also knows it’s not something that comes easily to Karkat.

“Heeey, okay, this is pretty funny and all, but uh...” The human named John is suddenly standing between them, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Maybe arguing from opposite ends of the room is a bit unnecessary? Why not just talk to each other up close, huh? That way you’d have less of an audience, too.”

Okay, Kanaya isn’t sure that the humans aren’t playing some kind of quadrant bingo on purpose now. Considering the way Karkat is staring at John, cheeks stained a furious red, he’s thinking along the same lines. Feferi stifles a giggle in her hand. Vriska raises her eyebrows. Eridan rolls his eyes.

Gamzee reaches out a hand and nudges Karkat’s elbow almost timidly. “You know, I don’t think I really am about to get a hang of human culture and all that noise yet, but maybe... maybe cool it a bit on the shouting? I think this might be one big motherfucking misunderstanding.”

Karkat looks like he’s about to snap at him too, and then pulls in a deep breath so suddenly that he practically chokes on it. “Okay. Right. _Fine_.” He breathes out explosively, his strangled irritation coming out as a series of waspish little clicks down in his throat. Really, he can be so childish at times. “Misunderstandings is pretty much the theme of my life at this point anyway. Sure, why not indulge in some more cultural sensitivity lessons, Karkat, since that is going _so well_ for you. Thank you, I guess I will, because apparently the human fuckparade of mixed signals isn’t going to get any better, and I’d like to not descend even further into the blistering depths of humiliation wrought by my own renegade squawk gaper.” He sits back down in his chair, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “Feel free to get over yourself and sit the fuck down.”

But Dave is still just kind of standing there, and something about the line of his shoulders and pinched lips suddenly makes the situation less funny, less like something that can be observed safely and dissected for details. It’s like they can all sense the shift in the air, going from spectators to involuntary inciters in an instant. The other trolls, like her, shift awkwardly in their seats, unsure how to deal with this sudden minefield of human fragility. The humans’ reactions, however, are more interesting still.

John is lowering his hands, brows pulling together in worry, and Kanaya notes that he moves slightly, placing his body directly in the path between Dave and Karkat. Rose is frowning, fingers twitching. Dirk’s hand moves and then stops, and he shakes his head with a small grimace that almost looks like shame. Roxy stands up.

The only ones not reacting overtly are Jake and Jane, but the latter is watching her friends very carefully.

Karkat’s mouth gradually softens out of its petulant expression, as it slowly seems to dawn that this all just went wrong on him. His eyes are softening too, both out of contrition and sudden insecurity. Kanaya has seen that expression before, knows how easily his jargon can carry him away until there’s suddenly no ground under his feet, nothing to support his anger and nothing that will allow him to backpedal. Her stupid, sweet, utterly thoughtless best friend.

His mouth opens, and she knows that it’s to frame an apology. But Dave seems to suddenly snap out of whatever froze him, his lip curling momentarily as if he’s tempted to bare his teeth, and then stifles the impulse. His face goes blank, not even betraying the studied aloofness from before. “Fuck this,” he says, and then simply turns around and walks right out again.

A moment later, they can hear Jade’s voice. “Dave? Dave, are you okay? Dave, wait up!” Apparently she was waiting outside.

Karkat gets up as well shortly thereafter, not meeting anyone’s gaze, and exits the room a bit too hurriedly. Kanaya suspects that he’s not trying to catch up with Dave so much as outrun his own emotional response, so he can deal with it where no one is looking.

Any moment now...

“Well, fuck...” Gamzee gets up, sighs, and lumbers after him. Maybe, Kanaya thinks anxiously, it might actually be good for Karkat to have a moirail right now. They can probably work something out... right?

Rose primly puts down her knife, lifting her napkin to dab at the corners of her mouth. “The hovercrafts will leave in an hour and a half. Since breakfast is officially ruined, perhaps we might all attempt to get ready?”

No one disagrees.

 

* * *

 

The landscape whipping past below is in some ways rather uniform, with the same shades of umber, terracotta and dusty pink blending into one another endlessly. There is little to break through the monotony now that they’ve left the deep dark green pits, fiery orange mud and cotton candy fungi of the salt water springs far behind. A majority of the desert vegetation clings to the sides of cliffs or creeps across whatever shadowy corners a rock formation or a hole in the ground might offer. Even the treelike vegetation out there looks almost indistinguishable from the rocks themselves, with only the flash of a leaf reflecting the sun to give them away.

Then again, Rose suddenly wouldn’t call it boring by any stretch of the imagination. The swirling patterns of dust across flat plains will give away to deep, impossibly carved canyons at a moment’s notice, and only a minute later the hovercraft has to weave perilously through sharp, spiraling cliffs. Rose enjoys this in particular, as they can hear the wind wail and roar among the labyrinth of rocks, and watch huge flights of flying reptiles and clouds of batlike insects pass below and above.

Because it’s her mother’s private hovercraft, there are several large windows on the sides with plush sofas running along them, as well as several half-spheres of glass protruding from the floor so one can watch the ground directly below as well. She notes that most of the trolls traveling with them are keeping well away from any windowed surfaces, clearly still struggling with the idea of a sun that doesn’t actively harm those caught in its rays - at least not as quickly as it does on their home world. There are some notable exceptions however. The one called Aradia is flat on her stomach against one of the sloping windows, excitedly pointing out everything they’re passing by and trying to get Sollux to stop lurking in the shadows and come join her. It doesn’t look like she’ll have much luck with that. The girl called Terezi is licking the windows and cackling loudly, saying it tastes like bubblegum and whatever “grubroast” is. Oh, and of course Kanaya is sitting happily curled up in a sofa, enjoying the slanting rays of the sun on her face. It’s a beautiful image, and Rose allows herself to enjoy it a moment longer.

She does, however, have a mission.

She finds Dave toward the back of the craft, slouching in one of the window bubbles on the floor. He’s so tall, his body has to be folded into a lot of awkward angles for him to sit comfortably there, but there’s still plenty of space left. She slides down next to him without addressing him first, leaning her head against his shoulder. He sighs.

“Is there any way to opt out of the sister-to-brother psychobabble hour? Not really feeling it right now. Not even with the addition of the illest of beats or the most serious of fires would Rose Picks My Brain be my jam right now. Sorry.”

Rose nudges his arm with her elbow, but not very hard. “So defensive so soon, dear brother? Why, you’re not even going to give me time to haul out a suitable couch, serious notebook and appropriate German accent before you decide to shoot me down so viciously?” He looks like he might actually snap at her, so she holds up a hand to cut him short. “But I’m not here to analyze you, Dave, or even to ask questions unless you want me to. It’s just that we haven’t actually talked since this whole circus began, and I thought perhaps it was time to rectify that.”

He opens his mouth as if to refute her statement, then frowns, shaking his head slightly. “Shit, I guess we haven’t. I mean not a proper, no-fucking-around, face to face Dave and Rose chat with no other goddamn interlopers to dilute the pure Daveness and Roseness of said serious business talk.” He winces slightly. “Do we have to have one _right now_?”

Rose sighs, only a little bit theatrically, and watches a group of some sort of animals skitter up a cliff face below, far enough away that they are only visible as movements and faint shadows. “There can be some fucking around, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be all serious business. But since the fact of the matter is that we are the ones melodramatic enough to throw ourselves on this particular sword - in other words, we’re in this together... well, doesn’t that require at least a perfunctory attempt at bonding over it?”

She honestly wishes at times like this that she was better at expressing herself sincerely, with no hyperbolic sentimentality, nor any affectionate passive-aggressive barbs to muddy the waters. She has to rely on the fact that Dave must know the nuances of her particular brand of communication by now, just as she knows how to parse the different tones of his ramblings.

He quirks an eyebrow at her, and she already knows he’s planning to be contrary. “Sort of like a ‘Spouses of weird aliens’ support group? Solemn circle of chairs in a cramped-ass room, holding hands and crying, the whole nine unit of measurement of your choice? Hello My Name Is Dave And I Married Someone Who Probably Hates Me, And Not Even In A Sexy Alien Kind Of Way?” He lapses into moody silence, tilting his head away as if something just caught his eye, but Rose would bet anything that he’s just staring at nothing behind his shades. The dark glass reflects the rushing landscape down below.

“You don’t actually think he hates you.” She’s very careful to keep what she said a statement, not a question. That makes it neutral enough for him to ignore if he likes to, but he can counter it if he feels like it.

There’s a calculated pause, as if he’s waiting to see if she’ll go away, despite both of them knowing perfectly well that she won’t. Then he groans, running a hand through his hair. “No, I don’t, and that’s not even the point. The point is that he’s still fine with being an asshole the moment I put a foot wrong, and I do that a lot because I’m an asshole too and I suffer from permanent Fuckupa Pedis, which is this rare and lamentable condition where your feet are literally never where they’re supposed to be - the medical term being that they’re rascally little fuckers - so you spend your whole life either chewing on them, accidentally kicking people in the face, or climbing slowly up your own asshole.” He laughs abruptly, not very happily. “Shit, maybe I _am_ developing a thing for feet. Quick, go tell John immediately.”

She disregards most of that as his mouth running on automatic while his brain is preoccupied with other things. But she can tell that he’s unhappy and doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s not all that hard to read, if you actually know him. “I know you’re worried, Dave-“

“Worried? Fuck no. Worried is some hand-wringing, lip-biting irrational shit. I’m getting very calmly and rationally _concerned_ that this is all gonna make me even more insane than I already am. Which is- it’s not something you want to hear from someone who has already gone certifiably bananas in a distinctly violent way once before, I get it.”

She sighs then, a soft and not entirely steady little sound, and leans against him a bit more heavily. Very well. Maybe it really does need to be a serious business talk about feelings. Not one where she analyzes him while dancing in circles around him either. The real stuff. “I know, Dave. I’m having similar concerns. You’re not the sole member of our family to have gone right off the deep end, if you recall?”

He glances sideways at her then, eyes more crimson than bright red in the shadow of his glasses. “Okay, let me preface this with saying that I’m not a complete asshole and I know you’re being serious right now, but... why?” His gaze darts over to Kanaya, who is sipping something from a cup and gazing pensively at the horizon. “I thought you were getting along really well with your new wife? You can make her blush just by looking at her by now, it’s this whole disgustingly cute thing.”

Rose shifts a bit where she sits, glancing around to see that no one is close enough to hear, and speaks in a lowered voice just in case. “Oh, we get along fine. But... hm.” She’s not quite sure how to explain it, so she searches for words while watching Karkat stomp over to where Kanaya sits, flinching at the sun and muttering to himself, but nonetheless flopping down gracelessly next to her. She smiles and offers him something out of a bag, probably those delightfully sinister-looking caramelized bug snacks. “You know that thing I do, where I treat your thoughts and the words you use and whatever you’re feeling like some sort of specimen I have pinned down to examine?”

“The thing that drives all of us nuts, which is the reason that Jane once threw a ladle at your head - which I congratulated her for, by the way? Yeah. I think I know which thing you mean.”

“Hurtful,” Rose mumbles, but it isn’t really. She can all too well understand why it frustrates the people she loves to be treated in such a fashion. It’s just that she doesn’t know any other way to be. “The predicament I find myself in is that the exigencies of my somewhat twisted mind demand that I treat _every_ thought, feeling and interaction the same way. Including my own. That along with my manipulative streak and, alas, narcissistic nature means that-“ She breathes out heavily, realizing that she’s using polysyllables as a means of stalling. Over at the couch, Kanaya appears to be scolding Karkat for managing to get little insect bits all down the front of his shirt, and is brushing him down. He flaps half-heartedly at her hand, scowling, but it’s pretty clear that he’s not actually trying to stop her. “-I don’t actually know what I’m really feeling, most of the time. I pick everything apart in its components as if I’m getting paid to perform mental surgery on myself, and I often provoke specific reactions from my own psyche because I enjoy whichever particular narrative I’m entertaining myself with currently.”

Dave raises his eyebrows slightly, and Rose feels unfamiliar heat rising on her cheeks, her momentary discomfiture causing her to glance away. “I know I’m fond of her, Dave. She’s a really nice person and she deserves nice things happening to her.” Her mouth twists slightly, in something that was meant to be a smile, but which grew hooks and barbs in the making. “And I’m not sure I’m actually a nice thing happening to her. I’m not sure I’m not just pretending to be, because right now it pleases me to play that part. In a month, a year... will I feel the same? Or will I end up hurting her? Will I end up hurting others in the process too?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then suddenly his arms are wrapping around her, practically pulling her into his lap as he hugs her. It’s rather disorienting. In her mind, he’s still somehow the slightly runty, scrawny preteen who would hang out in her room when she was trying to focus on her studies, mumble-rapping under his breath and stealing her snacks because he always seemed to be hungry back then. It’s strange every time she’s reminded how much bigger he is than her now, still lanky but made of practically endless arms and legs, elbows and knees. She’s the shortest out of the four of them, more petite in her build than Roxy, and she feels like she’s practically drowning in the hug.

It’s not bad, though. She leans her cheek on his chest, noticing how he smells like sunscreen, shaving cream and apple juice. Clean, simple smells. Her little brother, who has hurt so much and still gives so much to others.

“Hey Rose?” he mumbles, and his voice sounds so much deeper with her ear against his chest. “I know you’re by far the baddest bitch out of all four of us, no matter what Dirk might think...” She laughs softly, and he chuckles and actually ruffles her hair. The nerve. “But since I don’t have y’all’s personal problem of turning literally everything into some kind of machiavellian mind puzzle, maybe you can, I don’t know, try to trust me on this even if you can’t trust yourself? I know that sounds cheesy but, shit, just- just listen, alright?”

His hand presses gently against the top of her head, tilting her chin up slowly. She rolls her eyes slightly, but allows it. “I’m listening, Dave.”

“You like her. When you think about hurting her, even accidentally, it makes you feel like shit.” He shrugs slightly, leaning in and placing a light peck on the top of her head, making her feel like he’s older than her for a weird moment. “That’s enough, Rose. You can work with that. Whatever comes next, even if it’s not traditionally how things should go or some bullshit like that, or even if happens because you were trying to manipulate yourself into this weird-ass seduction saga like you’re personally the writer of the shitty Harlequin novel of your life... As long as you actually give a shit, and try your best to not fuck up the people around you, that’s all that matters.”

She smiles a bit tiredly at how earnest he is, settling down next to him with her head against his shoulder again. “You know what they say the road to hell is paved with, right?”

Dave makes a small sound, and she can’t decide if it’s exasperated or amused... or both. “It’s better than not trying. Having good intentions beats the hell out of sitting around and thinking you’re already boned so why bother, any day.”

She supposes he has a point, at that. It doesn’t exactly solve her problem, but it does sound less inevitable when he puts it like that. “This wasn’t what I imagined at all,” she gripes, swatting at him a tad too feebly to have the desired effect. “I was supposed to make you feel better with my considerable wisdom, not the other way around. I’d like you to please take my poor ego into consideration in the future.”

He snorts. “Rose, there is no way conceivable by man or alien to actually forget about your ego. It’d be like forgetting about a live sperm whale hanging out in the same room as you. Maybe your mind drifts off for a second, but there it is when you look up, huge and looming over you and probably about to crush you to a fine pulp, or just knock you the fuck out with its enormous metaphorical whale dong.”

She jabs him in the ribs with a finger in revenge, and he makes a funny squawking little sound and tries to twist away. Curse the cruel fate that made all of them some varying degrees of ticklish - except Dirk, the bastard. But it’s pretty funny when he gives her a betrayed look like she just broke some kind of sacred accord, and she can’t help laughing. Even so, she’s still concerned for him, and maybe it shows on her face, because he cuts her short before she can speak again.

“I guess it sort of did help, though? I mean, it’s a lot easier to focus on figuring someone else’s shit out, but that’s not really all of it. I guess what I mean is, maybe I should just take my own advice and just try to work this out. I mean, it’s not like I hate him either, but like... well, every time I get a little bit closer to really liking him, we both fuck up and it feels like hitting a square on some screwed up relationship board game, telling you to go back to the start.” He grimaces awkwardly. “But like I said, maybe I’m just blowing it out of proportion too, and all I gotta do is relax and trust that I can do this. It’s just...”

She’s close enough to see his eyes flicker, hear him swallow hard. She bets anything that if she were to lean in and listen to his chest, she’d be able to hear his heart speeding up. “Go on,” she murmurs, not bothering to hide her piqued interest.

He gives her an unimpressed look, but doesn’t bother to comment on it. “I don’t know where the line is anymore,” he blurts out instead after a moment of agonized hesitation. “Every time I get angry or stressed I think shit, is this it? Is this when round two starts? Fuck, I know the last time we were on an actual mission, there was real-ass danger instead of awkward social situations that probably set me off. But I still remember that it didn’t really feel all that special, you know? I was about as stressed out as I usually is, I was holding shit together, and then suddenly...”

She nods, and she can still hear Dirk’s voice frantically trying to snap Dave out of it even as he tried to get away, to dodge, to _not die_. Her own voice trying to stay calm, trying to direct attention away. She can remember so clearly the blank look in Dave’s eyes as she stepped in between them, shielding Dirk with her body, her certainty that her brother would never raise a hand to her. The shock of him grabbing her was so violent, she didn’t even remember that she was supposed to be fighting back until it was too late.

“I’m not even sure what did it, what made me snap,” Dave says in a low, miserable voice. “So I keep thinking... what if he pushes me at the wrong time, what if he says something that- Like, I’m not even talking full delusional murder-mode here, but even if I just hit him once, even if I just threaten to, or get all... all tensed up and cold and make him feel like I’m gonna do something bad...” He draws in a shaky breath. “I don’t wanna be like that. I don’t-“

“-want to be like our uncle,” she finishes, laying a finger over his mouth before he can protest, before he can call her out on analyzing his words like she said she wouldn’t. “You’re not. You know that. But if you still feel like you can’t trust your own reactions, I think I can at least promise to keep an eye on you both. I’ll be living close by, after all.” She gently pats his cheek. “If things between you seem like they’re going bad, I’ll find some way to intervene.”

He gives her a heartbreaking look, somewhere between hopeful, ashamed and uncertain. “Last time... I threw you into a _wall_ ,” he reminds her, as if he has to. As if she can’t hear the sound of the breath being knocked from her lungs in the silence between each word.

“I know.” She smiles then, glancing over at Roxy and John, who appear engaged in a particularly rowdy game of slam, cards flying everywhere. “But just like last time, I’ll be sure to have some backup. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another really talky chapter, but hey, stuff is sort of happening in the background? Besides, Dave and Rose were super overdue for a chat.


	12. Regrouping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past never goes away, the future is uncertain and potentially messy, so hold on to the present and don’t let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been learning how to drive (yes at the tender age of 31, don’t @ me) and it’s taken up a lot of my time. But here’s chapter 12, and I’ll try to work on 13 now that I’ll have more time to spare. Thanks for your patience!

“It’s the sea!” Feferi has stayed away from the windows for most of the trip; like most of her kin, direct sunlight still makes her uneasy. But now she rushes to the window which Aradia is still glued against, pressing her body flush against it next to her, so close that their elbows are jostling playfully for space. Aradia laughs at her eagerness, showing a white row of teeth which are significantly more blunt than what is usual for their species - but not for her blood caste in particular.

She’s so much smaller than her, her body so much frailer, and she doesn’t even have proper fangs. _And_ she could fling her princess clear through this reinforced window without even batting an eyelid if she wanted. Feferi finds it delightful.

Idly she thinks that there should be a word for this kind of relationship too, the kind you get when you both occupy different quadrants in someone else’s grid. There’s a special kind of kinship to it, a fondness built from seeing someone else supply someone you love with something they need, something you yourself can’t give. It shouldn’t be a reason to feel jealous, but to appreciate your shared dedication to another person’s happiness, and to strengthen each other in this task.

She wonders if she should say something about it, but the sea inexorably draws her attention back. She can feel the protective fins by her gills flaring, as if aching for something other than dry air. The webbing between her fingers itches. She sighs, watching the coast grow nearer.

Because of the dramatic tides along this coast, what with the three massive moons, a lot of sediments from the plains frequently tint the water along the shoreline in rust, tan and pink. At this distance, it looks rather morbid, as if the blood of a hundred, a thousand culled rustbloods has seeped into the waves. At the same time, it’s rather pretty, the currents creating swirling patterns against the dark azure depths.

Somewhere down there, her lusus is waiting for her. All of them who still have living lusii had been forced to hide them away from the growing opposition toward their faction among the highbloods. Alternia hadn’t been safe for either of them anymore, especially after Karkat’s ancestry had been found out by a select few. Kanaya’s lusus was already dead from natural causes, Aradia’s had perished in the incident that almost took her life, Gamzee’s had been the victim of a targeted attack, and Vriska claims her lusus had suffered the same fate. No one questions that claim; no one is that unkind. The rest of them, though, found their guardians in need of protection, and had taken steps.

The biggest problem, literally, was Gl'bgolyb. She needed to be taken to another planet, not so much for her own safety as because she needed to be somewhere off planet where Feferi would be safe, so she could keep maintaining her bond with her after fleeing Alternia. If this was done in a way that displeased her, the consequences would be immeasurably horrible. Even after Feferi had managed to convince her that it was in their best interest, it had taken such a huge operation to get her here, so many favors owed, such a terrible effort which had almost culminated in catastrophe.

Oh well. At least the seas of this planet are full of enormous underwater terrors lurking in the deep trenches. Her lusus will not go hungry here.

Another way for Eridan to convince himself that he’s useless, though. She lets out a string of worried high-frequency clicks, the kind which humans apparently have trouble hearing properly. He’s taken to occupying himself with strange architectural projects, and she lets him, making sure he has everything he might need to that end. It’s better than him going on about killing off all humans, or moping. Even though she doesn’t feel _that_ way about him anymore, she still feels responsible for how badly it ended between them... and also maybe a _little_ bit sorry about hitting him with a one-wheel device and breaking off a part of his left horn. Even if he was really asking for it. The point is, she still keeps an eye on him, just in case.

She rather misses their friendship, though. He’s really the only other sea dweller who is on her side, and she misses being able to talk to him without things being so awkward. Even if his own relationship with water is still really weird, he would at least understand why she is so happy to be back here in a way that land dwellers can’t quite grasp.

She sighs, the window in front of her misting over slightly, even from her relatively cool breath. A dainty finger appears in front of her nose, using the condensation to draw a smiling face with sharp fangs and a decent attempt at her horns. She giggles, and Aradia bumps her shoulder against her arm.

“No frowning! Especially over dumb ‘buoys’.”

Feferi sticks her tongue out in mock affront. “This is my fishpunishment for hanging out with the precodnizant, isn’t it?”

That gets her a snort from the other girl, along with an amused look. “Or maybe he’s the most common cause for that face, silly. I don’t need any precognitive abilities to make an educated guess.”

She supposes Aradia has a point there. And it’s pretty dumb to fret about things she cannot help, especially when so many exciting things are happening right now. She should try to focus on that for now, and work on some kind of solution down the line. Lucky for her a cluster of rectangular shapes come into view on the plains below, offering a perfect distraction. “Look! That must be the human settlement. Their buildings almost alwaves have that shape for some reason.”

Aradia squints, head tilted as she tries to make it out. “Do they always live all clumped up like that? And isn’t it supposes to be by the sea? It looks pretty odd, all those little platforms around it, but no water.”

“See all that flat ground that sort of glitters, and all those small pools of water?” Feferi lifts her hand and points at the stretch of land between the settlement and the sea. “I bet the tide is low right now, that’s why it looks like that. The glittery stuff is probably salt after the water’s been drying out.”

“Is that where they’ll be living? It seems a bit... crowded.” Feferi notices how she glances sideways along the window, where Karkat is now leaning against Kanaya’s propped-up legs, arms folded over the back of the sofa and his face buried in them. He looks like he might be napping. Kanaya is awake, sitting carefully still so as not to jostle him. She’s holding an open book, but it rests forgotten in her lap as she gazes out the window with a thoughtful expression.

“Nooo, that was still a bit too far from the border. It was agreefed that both couple will be housed esquidistant from the border but on opposite sides. That way both sides can kelp an eye on each other.”

Aradia raises an eyebrow, though her smile stays where it is. “That doesn’t sound very trusting, does it?” Toward the back of the ship, their friends’ spouses sit leaning against each other in one of those strange window bubbles. Rose’s eyes are closed, her expression tranquil; it’s impossible to read much of Dave’s at this distance, with the shades covering his eyes. After this morning, it seems like a good idea for everyone to take a break and rest up.

Feferi grimaces slightly in response to Aradia’s question. “Well, trusting isn’t exactly what I’d call either side right now. Honestly, it’s reely dumb. It’s not like the human settlement hasn’t been here for _years_ before - and we knew about it! They just didn’t know aboat us, because until recently, all of our facilities were underwater and far out at sea. The sea dwellers were content to ignore what they saw as a minor infishtation of primitive aliens on land.” She sighs. “But it was hardly possible to _hide_ it when we transported my lusus here, and around the same time, Professor Lalonde and her children’s arrival brought a fincrease in humans - including her personal seacurity detail.” She shrugs tiredly. “My own entourage didn’t look kindly on the humans appearing to increase their firepower right at my arrival. I tried to convince everyone that it was a coastincidence, but at that point everyone was shouting and not inclined to listen to sense anymoray. Fast forward a quarter-sweep, and here we are.”

“Oh wow. You’re right, that’s really dumb!” Aradia laughs, and though it really is no laughing matter, Feferi can’t help grinning back. She can’t help or change what her friends are like, and honestly, she doesn’t want to. Not a single one of them. She doesn’t really want to be changing either, but she’s aware that she has little choice in the matter at this point. “But even if how we got here was stupid, doesn’t mean we can’t be clever about the situation right now, right? And it doesn’t have to be all bad. I mean, if they have to live close to each other on opposite sides of the border, that means we don’t have to be very far apart, right?”

Feferi nods, smiling. “That’s true! I’ve already made arrangements so that we can all live in the same hive on that side.” She doesn’t add how important it is for all of them not to be too far separated right now; they need to stick together in case the Condesce‘s agents make a move again. Karkat in particular is a dead troll walking if they let him too far out of sight.

From the look Aradia gives her, it’s clear that she already knows, but she chooses not bring it up as well. “That’s nice! So, where will they be staying on the human side?”

They’re practically on top of it already, but Feferi still points to the towering cliffs to the west of the settlement, where one lone building is silhouetted against the bright blue dome of the sky. “Up there!”

 

* * *

 

It had apparently been some sort of communication hub from the time before they got SkaiaNet set up down here, making this place obsolete. John never paid much attention to the boring parts of history classes, to which all kinds of now redundant technology definitely belong, so he’s not sure what exactly had been going on here or why the high elevation had been necessary. Thank god he hadn’t been forced to hang around here for an extended time before they managed to set up the network, that sounds miserable.

As they’d fixed up the place for Dave and Karkat to move in, they’d torn out all the old electronics and dumped them outside, and they’re still there in one big heap of wires and circuit boards. Predictably, Dirk is already crouching down and running his hands over the mess, murmuring softly to himself. John catches Jake’s eye, and they both grin and roll their eyes. Even if it’s outdated and kind of dumb, the guy just can’t help getting his hands all over it. What a nerd!

One of the trolls, the one with the lisp and the perma-bored expression, steps over and crouches down as well. He raises his eyebrows slightly, huffing out a quiet laugh. “Wooow. This is just amazingly primitive, isn’t it?” John feels that’s kind of rude, even if it’s true.

Dirk just shrugs and nods. “Of course. But I imagine it took a while to have something more useful set up. Paperwork, bureaucracy... The beauty of the more simple shit is that you can just set it up anywhere and it’s ready to go.”

“Not that I imagine a lowblood like you would understand-“ Oh hey, it’s the big guy with all the muscles and a definite personal problem related to his odor. “-but there is a _strong_ beauty inherent in the simple yet effective. Plus, it’s fiddling hard to hack, if you excuse my language.”

Dirk looks amused, if that is the right word to use for the very slight, very brief quirking of his lips. “Wow, that’s some pretty disgusting use of profanity there, but I’ll let it slide for now.”

The lisping troll just snorts. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure who you’re talking to. All I could hear was the gurgling of the last vestiges of spongejuices slowly draining out of some asshole’s skinvents along with an ocean of sweat.” He lifts one hand, which immediately starts to glow, and some of the mess on the ground lifts up and starts swirling through the air, assembling itself into... something. Dirk lets out a low whistle, watching raptly, and John doesn’t doubt that he can actually tell what’s going on. Weirdos, all three of them. “As for hard to hack... that just depends on how hard you try.”

John leaves the nerds to have fun with whatever they’re doing, he’s got bigger fish to fry and anyway he’s not that interested in technology. Dumping the bags he’s carrying by the door, he roams through the house, noting how it’s actually pretty cozy. Sure, in some places the walls appear to be just bare masonry, but whoever fixed this place up has covered them with woven mats in bright colors to keep out the cold. Assorted mismatched but nice furniture as well as rugs have been dragged in to fill the spaces where all the communication equipment used to be. And once he climbs the spiral staircase in the middle of the small tower to the top floor, he finds the rooms already fully furnished, the walls painted, even curtains in the windows. This must be where whoever operated all the equipment used to live.

He also finds Dave, standing by one of the windows and staring out over the sea, wearing that dumb inscrutable expression that fools exactly no one. He doesn’t turn around as John walks up to him, but he can feel him glancing sideways even though the shades mostly obscure his eyes. “Damn, how’s a guy supposed to get his cinematic brood on like this? I’m pretty sure ‘some dork named Egbert sidles up’ isn’t in the script for this scene.”

John snorts, bumping their shoulders together. “I hate to tell you this about your brooding... but it’s really rather transparent and not really all that distant and rugged at all. I think we’re going to have a movie night so you can learn from the masters!”

“Oh hell no. If you think I’m going to model my innocent lips and sweet brow after the half constipated, half lobotomized expression of whatever sweaty clowns you get your rocks off to, you can just forget it. Your action ‘heroes’ are bumbling tryhards who all have complicated relationships with their wives because they’ve never learned to communicate beyond grunts and vapid oneliners, and no one can truly love a man who comes with a ‘yippie-ki-yay motherfucker’. That’s my final word on the matter.” A deep breath. “I would rather be a shitty brooder than curse myself to that unloveable fate.”

He’s really tense, then. Dave always rambles, but he usually at least allows himself to breathe or leaves some kind of space in the conversation for John to bounce off him a couple of times. Then again, everything sure is weird right now, so that’s hardly surprising.

Nudging Dave’s shoulder a bit more gently this time, John lowers his voice a bit. “Is there anything I can do? I mean I mostly suggested the movie thing because you get a kick out of riffing on my awesome tastes, but you don’t actually sound like you were having any fun. You just sounded kind of bad-tempered and tired.”

Dave makes a quiet sound, lifting one hand to rub at his eyes under the shades. “Sorry man, that probably came across as way more cross than my usually cool material. Pretty entry level stuff, really.”

“It’s okay. Even a master hipster has an off day, I bet.”

Score! Dave actually smiles at that, bumping his shoulder back against John’s as if he’s annoyed, but John can tell some of the tension has gone out of him. “Don’t worry too much about me, though. I had a very thorough feelings jam with Rose on the hovercraft, leaving absolutely nothing left to examine - especially if it was of an even vaguely phallic nature.”

Dave always does this thing where serious business ends up wrapped in dumb jokes, especially about dicks. It had taken a long time for John to catch on when he wasn’t just being a wise guy, and if he’s to be honest, he still doesn’t really know how to decipher it when he does. But he’ll do his best to just sidestep some of the jokes meant to trip him up. “It’s good that you talked about your feelings. I mean, both of you being kind of in the same boat and all.”

“Yeah.” Dave picks at a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt. “If I’m gonna be stuck on a boat without oars or a motor or whatever, and that boat is going over a metaphorical waterfall of interspecies misunderstandings, I pretty much couldn’t find a better person to share the ride with.”

“Yeah, at l least one of you will be smart, heh.” John chuckles as Dave clearly stifles a laugh. “But also, she tends to overthink things waaaay too much, so it’s good that you’re around to cut through all her convoluted ideas from time to time.” From the way Dave glances back as if looking to see if Rose has somehow materialized in the room, John is pretty sure he was right about that conclusion. Hell yes, he’s so good at offering friendly support. “But just so you know... you can talk to me too. Whenever you need to.”

Dave’s lips quirk a bit again, but the smile looks a bit sad to John. “Yeah, I know. I’ll message you if I feel like I’m going insane, Time Force honor. Or just babble endlessly into your inbox if you’re busy, so you can have a first row seat in witnessing my rad descent into the coolest and most ironic of madness. I promise I’ll make it an epic goddamn spectacle. We’re talking King Lear if King Lear wasn’t kind of a dick but just this sweet dude doing his best.”

John rolls his eyes a bit, because Dave sure likes to make it hard to talk seriously with him. “Well, yeah, obviously. I mean not the madness part, hopefully that isn’t actually necessary, but I of course you can always message me. But I’ll also be sticking around for two months in that town down there, so I’ll be around for some sweet friendship bro jams too.”

Dave says nothing for a moment or two, then breathes out rather suddenly and slings his arm around John’s shoulders, leaning on him just a bit. “Thanks, dude.”

“No worries. Obviously Jade will be staying too, she doesn’t want to be left out, so it’ll be all eight of us on leave together for a while.”

Dave once again doesn’t reply right away, just gazes out over the ocean. John can see some kind of big winged creatures wheeling high above the waves out there. “Shit, has that even happened once since we all met? I mean, for longer than a couple of days?”

“Huh, I guess not.” He hadn’t really thought about it; there was always a really important reason behind each and every mission, and a lot of the time they just kind of blended together. But maybe that had been another thing that had been eating at Dave? Maybe apart from his uncle not being even remotely close to as awesome as Dace used to claim, but actually being a huge asshole, he’d needed a break from everything for quite a while. John feels a small sting of guilt as he watches the slight frown pulling at Dave’s face. Should he have kept a closer eye on his best friend? Now that he thinks back, he thinks perhaps there were quite a few signs that Dave was just... tired.

Admittedly, there’s quite a huge leap from someone being tired and needing a break and just... straight up hallucinating some shit and trying to kill your brother because you think he’s someone else right now. But maybe the small things had all added up one after another, until finally Dave had just snapped. Maybe that explained it at least a little bit? John has to admit that he rather _wants_ an explanation, because it had seemed so senseless, so impossible when they had burst into that bunker just in time to see Rose slumping against a wall, a smear of blood running from the point of impact down to her head. At first it had seemed like they were too late, as Dave turned away from her and raised his gun with a blank look on his face, firing right at Dirk. Dirk, down on one knee, his leg clearly busted, his face white and wide-eyed and _scared_. All John had time to do was shout, ‘ _Dave no!_ ‘ at the same time as Roxy screamed, ‘ _Dirk!_ ‘ in the most horribly helpless way imaginable.

Lucky for them that Hal moved a lot quicker than the two of them. Less lucky, in a way, for Hal.

All he could really do was intercept the beam head-on, with a horrible crackling sound of fusing metal and failing circuitry, an immediate sharp stench of ozone and burning plastic, and a blinding light as his electromagnetic field overcharged, grew and then burst like a soap bubble. It did however buy them a moment when Dave flinched back in confusion, shielding his eyes from the glare, and a moment was all they needed. It was enough for John to get behind Dave and put him in an armlock, enough for Roxy to run up before he had time to struggle and straight up clock him in the jaw.

‘ _I’m sorry,_ ‘ she had whispered as he sagged in John’s arms, unconscious.

At first John had felt less apologetic about the whole thing, and hadn’t even felt bad about simply dropping Dave to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He’d been honest-to-god angry when the first words out of Dirk’s mouth after helping Hal out were, ‘ _Is he alright?_ ’ He hadn’t felt like Dave deserved that concern after what he’d done. How could he have hurt his own family like that?

Then Dave had woken up confused and shaking, without a single comprehensive memory of the day before, tugging at the cuff keeping him shackled to his bed in the sickbay and begging John to tell him what was wrong. Why were they all staring at him like that? What happened? Why were Dirk and Rose in there too, were they hurt?

At first they’d suspected mind control, it wasn’t as if they didn’t have a notable enemy who was very capable of such nefarious shenanigans. It was a convenient place for John’s anger to go that wasn’t his best friend, and he was relieved. But that bastard Doc Scratch had actually contacted them and sworn up and down that he wasn’t responsible. Rose grudgingly admitted that he usually didn’t outright lie. So John’s anger had stalled, not sure where to go, an uncomfortable burning spike in his chest whenever he talked to Dave.

It had taken months and a lot of shit going wrong before he could finally talk about it, finally explain what had really happened on that day. John’s anger had finally found the right target, and he’s relieved about that. Because Dave doesn’t deserve it, and if he’s to be honest, it had really hurt to be that furious and conflicted about his best friend. And even though he was going to miss him, he’d supported his decision to take time off to recuperate somewhere far away from all the stressful shit they’d been dealing with lately. He seemed like he might need it. Rose too, after almost dying, and Jake after being super heroic and losing an arm in the process!

It was such a shitty twist of fate that their cozy vacation had turned into this weird political marriage debacle! John feels kind of sorry for the aliens too, it’s not like they seemed any more prepared for this weird situation, but as far as he knows they weren’t actively trying to get away from an already kind of shitty and potentially dangerous situation. Beside, what kind of bro would he be if he didn’t firmly take Dave’s side in the matter?

“So uh...” He hesitates a bit, trying to think of a smooth way to bring it up, but he honestly has no idea how that’s even supposed to be a thing. “You’ll probably need to talk to him about that fight you had, huh? Do you-“ Argh, this is going to be awkward, but you have to make sacrifices for such a sweet friendship as theirs. “Do you want me to stick around as like... moral support or whatever when you do?”

Dave’s eyebrows shoot up, and are shortly followed by a small smile. “It’s sweet of you to offer and all but... nah dude, I think it’s something I’ve just gotta wrangle in a manly fashion, which is to say on my own.”

“Why not?”

“Um... I guess I just don’t want him to feel like we’re ganging up on him? I don’t really know him that well yet, but I already have this feeling that most of the time when he totally flips his shit, it’s because he feels cornered somehow, see?” Dave makes an awkward little grimace. “Besides, uh... you trying to kind of mediate between us like you did before? It was nice of you and all, but actually that’s like... a kind of unfortunate thing to do according to troll culture, I think?”

John frowns in confusion, trying to figure out what Dave means, and why his ears are turning red all of a sudden. “How? Is it like... culturally important to them to scream at each other over breakfast or something? Man, aliens are weird.”

Dave makes that little head motion that means he’s rolling his eyes. “No, not exactly. I mean yeah they’re weird but this is like... you trying to chill the two of us out when we’re both being hostile at each other is apparently like a romantic gesture to trolls.”

“Wait. _What_?”

“I mean search me, I want to be on record as absolutely not getting this strange-ass shit, but that’s how Karkat explained things to me before. It’s like... hostile interactions can be romantic to them, apparently? But apparently so can seeing two people being aggro at each other and going ‘hell naw, not in front of _my_ breakfast’? It’s like a platonic romantic threeway where two people are low-key fed up with each other all the time, but the third party makes sure they never actually go all the way into straight-up hate snogs.”

“Eww okay, that’s... kind of messed up.” John emphatically sticks out his tongue, and Dave makes a small noise of agreement. “But I guess I can see how talking this out with him will be weird enough without him assuming that we’re both hitting on him in whatever weird alien way is normal to him?”

“You got it. And this marriage is gonna be complicated enough without him thinking that all three of us are in ashen love together, whatever the fuck that actually entails. From how I get it, you can only be in one type of love with someone at a time? At least I think so, I kind of tuned out some of the more complicated parts of his lecture.”

“So uh...” John raises his eyebrows slightly. “Do you want to be in some other kind of love with him? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Whoa, what? No, that’s not- I mean maybe? It could be nice if we could actually have some kind of feelings for each other despite this marriage being a sham, I guess.” Dave pulls a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up awkwardly. “Fuck, like I said, I still haven’t even worked out what my sexuality is or how it even relates to a weird insect alien. I think maybe I think he’s kind of cute? When we’re not flipping out at each other, I mean.”

“Awww! Well, that’s a good start, right? I think it would be really nice if you could fall in love with the alien you’re married to and live happily ever after in spite of all the odds against you, that sounds like such a sweet love story!”

“Oh my god, you’re such an embarrassing nerd.” Dave jostles him affectionately, and John laughs and pushes back against him. “But yeah, at least I don’t want to lock our romantic possibilities into basically the weirdest and most confusing option available just yet. And, uh, I’m not sure how you’d feel about that either?”

“Um, well... You know I love you as a friend and all but-“

“You’re not in weird alien meditation love with me and my husband? You cut me deep Egbert. You cut me real deep.”

“Pffff smartass.”

“You know it. Within my almost negative amount of ass, a truly paradoxical amount of sheer brains is contained under great pressure, always jonesing to burst free.”

“Sounds like a gross personal problem to me! Or maybe you’re hitting on me. Are you hitting on me Dave?”

“Hey, maybe I just want you to join this sweet dude harem I’m planning? Can’t a guy ask his best friend to join his harem without it being gay?”

“...No. I have to tell you, that’s pretty gay Dave.”

“I’ll be the prettiest gay... except I guess when Dirk is in the same room, then there’ll be two of us.”

The one thing that John really feels should have told him that something was wrong in retrospect was that they couldn’t really talk like this anymore. That is, Dave would still make stupid jokes at first because apparently that’s just how he deals with things, but that was just it. It was _just_ stupid jokes, and the part of it that was about real feelings had slowly gotten lost, and once they headed towards the breaking point even the jokes had started wearing thin. And then afterwards it had all been so raw that they couldn’t really joke at all anymore, just talk about heavy and serious shit that felt like pulling teeth even if it was important.

It’s nice to sort of be back to normal, even if everything has changed and very little looks like it will stay the same in their future. To John, the only important normalcy has always been the few things you can carry with you, the things you hold on to even if the world comes down around your ears and the only real choice is to try to build something new. There’s always something.

In the end, that’s all that really matters.


	13. While asleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s hard to say for sure who is broken and who isn’t, or if the distinction matters at all. But broken or not, not talking about it has never made those parts go away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write at least a two-perspective part like I usually do, but this one got so long, I decided to just post it and be done with it. It’s v babbly but then again, why have Dave and Karkat as a main pairing if you’re not prepared to write a lot of talking? :P

The people who had lived there before them had been a married couple too, Dave had told him. He hadn’t said how he knew. Maybe because there is only one bed there, and apparently sleeping together consistently is a customary thing for married humans. It seems impractical and pointless, because what does it matter when you’re _asleep_ anyway? But then again human beds are very different from recuperacoons. Obviously sharing one isn’t as cramped, or nearly as intimate as the both of you submerging in the same slime. Maybe if you’ve only got blankets to rely on, the custom had developed because it’s an easy way to stay warm?

Still pointless, though. It’s not like it had been kind of nice to wake up so close to someone else. Definitely not. At any rate they’re having a recuperacoon moved in later, for whenever his dreams start to grow restless and troubling. He’d prefer not to start babbling weird shit to Dave in his sleep about seeking shelter from the sun, running from drones, or red hot iron. Fuck that in particular.

Snooping around the bedroom to take his mind off things, he finds a picture that was knocked off a clothing repository at some point and left in dusty limbo in the space between the plywood and the wall. It depicts a couple of humans in what looks like some form of beige work clothes, smiling widely at each other and ignoring the camera. A male and a female, both wearing their hair short, their skin much darker than Dave’s. The female is standing and the male is in a chair, and the former has her hand resting lightly on the latter’s head.

He finds himself staring down at the picture for fuck knows how long, feeling strange. It feels like an intrusion somehow, not exactly because of what the picture depicts as such, but because this used to be a part of someone’s home. Something they choose to display because it presumably had some meaning to them, but now it’s just another piece of junk they left behind when they moved out.

It’s also strange because has to assume that they are the married couple that used to live here, and this is what that kind of relationship is meant to look like. Whatever the tense, uneasy state of affairs with Dave is, it sure as shit isn’t this.

The longer he looks, peripherally aware of a muffled conversation going on a few rooms away, the more he starts to think that the female looks deformed somehow. Her abdomen shouldn’t jut out that much on such a skinny frame, right? It takes him a few more minutes of squinting to figure out that this is probably that whole ‘pregnancy’ thing Kanaya has touched on briefly before he’d told her to shut up or he’d be forced to vomit in her lap as an act of crude self-defense. So the female looks like that because she’s infested with another, smaller human that hasn’t made its gruesome way out of her body yet? Gross.

Strange... they kind of look more like moirails than matesprits in this picture. But obviously not, since they’re in fact in the middle of a cycle of procreation together. He wonders if he isn’t in fact watching something way more intimate than he was first aware of when he picked up the picture. Do they show this to others? Surely every female can’t just hide away while this process is visible on their bodies, however unpalatable it is? He can’t imagine how that wouldn’t end in a downright culling of all males.

But what the picture depicts is supposed to be the more traditional purpose of a marriage, isn’t it? Somewhat obsolete now, but still apparently important to the people in the colony. Obviously everything about this whole arrangement is just a carefully orchestrated charade, and the male human who turns Dave into one big flinch whenever he’s around had even argued for the current arrangement of couples by pointing out that they’re not biologically viable together anyway. So the male:female ratio and distribution didn’t actually matter.

Still... despite procreation apparently being voluntary for humans, and despite Dave explicitly having said that he views marriage more as a romantic gesture, Karkat suddenly wonders if that’s another thing Dave has been robbed of by being tied to him. Is this something he would’ve wanted under normal circumstances? Maybe as the product of an alternative route of procreation, he doesn’t worry about it? The humans in the picture look older than him, so... will he want something like this later on, albeit achieved through different means?

The idea of what they call ‘parenthood’ is so bizarre, Karkat has no idea how to even relate to it. Trying to imagine himself caring for one of the squishy human equivalents of wigglers as if he were its lusus is both repellent and strangely fascinating, like considering taking on a vaguely sentient alien as a pet. Imagining Dave doing the same, holding one in his arms the way he’s seen the humans in the town do, makes his heart do something soft and strange. He’s not sure he likes it.

He also finds himself idly wondering if Dave would’ve chosen to marry a female if he’d been given the choice. It seems like the more common way to go about it, albeit apparently not exclusively so. Some of the humans had seemed disgusted by their demand, but Dave hadn’t been among them. He’d seemed kind of annoyed at how they were acting, and had been the first to agree with their terms, so clearly it hadn’t bothered him. But if humans are more prone to being strangely picky the way Kanaya is, he suddenly wonders what he would’ve preferred.

Which is stupid. What he would’ve _preferred_ is obviously to get married to another human, presumably one that he actually gives a shit about. Karkat finds himself holding the picture in his hands a little bit too hard, and slowly relaxes his grip on the frame before he damages it. _He’d_ prefer not to have to explain this alien contract to every single troll potentially interested in whichever quadrants he’ll still have available in the future, yet here they are. What’s the point of feeling resentful and hurt that Dave might have picked someone else if given a choice? Wouldn’t he have done the same?

He curls up on top of the bed, the picture slipping from his lap onto the sheets, and then it slides with a silent clatter to the floor. He shivers slightly, wrapping his arms around his legs. Night is falling, the temperature dropping steeply as the last rays of the sun are strangled by the horizon. Outside the window a spectacular array of stars are fading into view, and all Karkat can think of is that it’s all so sad and lonely. The frustration, the anger, the confusion and embarrassment are all still there, but far away as the wind picks up outside and he becomes aware that he can no longer hear any voices, the emptiness of the house aching like an open wound. He wishes he was home. He misses Alternia. He wishes his lusus was here.

Darkness arrives like a fist, and he should be more comfortable at night, but the last two weeks have fucked so badly with his internal clock, he finds that it just makes him more tired somehow. There are no lights on in the bedroom, nor can he see any light coming from any other room. It’s really getting kind of cold. What the fuck?

“Hey.” And suddenly Dave is standing in the door, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other. He’s holding a dimmed lantern in one hand and a small wad of some kind of shiny textile under his other arm. He looks like something is on his mind, but then he’s momentarily derailed. “Dude, do your eyes actually glow in the dark?”

“Well, yeah? We’re a fucking nocturnal species, Dave, not that you humans appear to give a shit. Even if we don’t all light up like Perigee’s Eve decorations the way rainbow drinkers do, is a little bit of bioluminescence really that fucking weird?”

“Huh. I guess not.” Despite Karkat wanting to bite his tongue off for coming off so aggressive and resentful right out of the brooding cavern entrance, this time Dave doesn’t appear to rise to it. He looks more relaxed somehow. Regardless what humans think, Karkat is seriously starting to suspect that John _is_ his moirail after all, or at least serves the human equivalent of the same function. “Hey, it seems like while they were fixing up this place, not a single fucking one of them thought to maybe check out the power and see if everything was okay. I mean I guess I can’t blame them, I too am frequently distracted by bright colors and ordinary objects like rugs and cushions, but it would’ve been cool if they did.”

“...So, the reason for the bulge-numbing goddamn cold is-“

“Yeah, something appears to have chewed through the isolation around the batteries powering this place, letting in the damp. They’re currently covered by an inch thick layer of some white, crusty shit - some kind of acid.”

“Wow. Great. That’s fucking _fantastic_.” Karkat sticks his hands in his armpits to stop his fingers going numb, and buries his feet under the blanket. “I’ve personally always enjoyed temperatures that make my shame globes crawl whimpering up my own nook in a desperate bid for warmth. That sounds really fucking cozy, don’t you think?”

“Hey, tell me about it. Dirk fucked away the entire afternoon doing robot battles with two of your friends, and he only discovered this once they went down to where Rose and Kanaya will be staying. Since it was already getting dark by then, we didn’t feel like there would be any point trying to fix it tonight. He, Jade and Roxy will be here tomorrow morning to deal with the problem.”

Karkat tries to not look too pitiful where he sits; nocturnal they might be but prone to roaming around the landscape for no reason they’re not, so he’s never noticed before exactly how biting cold the nights on this forsaken fucking planet are. He’s only in a t-shirt and pants, and suddenly wishes he hadn’t dismissed Kanaya’s offer to knit him something warmer so quickly.

Dave seems to notice his distress anyway, and the corners of his mouth lift lightly. Normally Karkat would probably go off on him for that, but he’s too cold and tired, and anyway it doesn’t seem like an unkind smile. Dave finally stops hovering in the doorway and comes inside, setting down the lantern and then dropping the bundle of fabric squarely on Karkat’s feet. “We do have this, though. It’s a field blanket. Mostly it’s the Space and Void forces that use these, and Jade had a spare one; they’re standard equipment for exploring new territory, so they have to stand up to a lot. Meaning they’re practically completely isolating and have heat strips sewn into them - oh and they’re proof against corrosion, will deflect most standard energy beams, can nullify impacts up to 1000 pounds per square inch, and will neutralize poisonous gasses, but that’s probably... marginally less useful right now.”

Karkat can’t help how his mouth relaxes until he’s no longer outright scowling, even if it would be a bit of a reach to call it a smile. “Speak for yourself, human. I saw you eat one of those... what do you call them? Burr-eat-ohs? From my regrettably extensive and incomprehensibly harrowing studies of your human anatomies so far, I’d can only conclude that the neutralizing of poisonous gasses is probably the only way I’m going to survive the night.”

Dave snorts, sitting down on the bed next to him and starting to unfold the blanket, spreading it over the one that is already covering the bed. “Fuck yeah, fart jokes. That’s how we know that we’re married for real, like the institution just got officially cemented. I solemnly declare the mystique to be _gone_ from this bitch, and it’s never coming back. On with the granny panties and hand over the remote. Let’s watch a reality show.”

“Does it ever worry you that about half of what you say is word plantmix?” Karkat demands even as he slips properly under the covers. He lets out a displeased little noise as his shirt rides up a bit, and the fabric underneath him is cold and slightly damp against his skin.

“Says the dude who says shit like ‘plantmix’ and ‘thermal hull’ - what the fuck is up with these translating creepy crawlers anyway, why do they keep translating the literal meaning of some words and not others? Are they just fucking with us?” Dave dims the light further before slipping the shades off his face. Then he also scoots into the bed with a small grimace, brushing his fingers briefly against a corner of the field blanket and causing a panel to light up. “Okay, it’ll take a little while to warm us up with a normal blanket in between, but that’s still a lot nicer than having this thing directly against our bodies. It’s made to be utilitarian, not cozy.”

Karkat, who had been working on a biting retort regarding human vernacular, is about to ask how the fuck Dave proposes they keep from freezing their various bits of anatomy off until then... but then again, the answer is obvious. Letting out an annoyed huff, he turns on his side and scoots until his back is pressed against Dave, then reaches back and tugs impatiently at his arm.

“Um-“ It’s rather gratifying how taken aback Dave sounds.

“Will you just try to not be a complete idiot? I realize we’re still in the early stages of the wretched disease called friendship, but do you at least have enough pity in your deformed alien pump biscuit to manage that? I need some body heat, and you’re regrettably the only candidate, even though you only barely manage to suffice in that regard.” He tugs at the human’s arm again. “Now don’t just lie there like a heap of cooling behemoth leavings, will you?”

“That’s- Thats the most poetic invitation to spoon I’ve ever heard. And that includes John letting out a lengthy fart and saying ‘here, I warmed up the bed for us.” He’s a shit about it, but at least he does what he’s told, wrapping his arm around Karkat without further ado, the other curling around his shoulder. “Holy shit, you’re so warm. This is like cuddling a tiny furnace, it’s so great. Ten out of ten horn cozies, or whatever the fuck you wear.”

Karkat jabs an elbow into Dave’s ribs in response to the word ‘tiny’, but not very hard. “And you’re delightfully lukewarm, like all of your kind. My only consolation is that I’m at least not trying to warm up a highblood right now.” Not that a gentle cool touch on agitated, hot skin couldn’t feel nice, but nope, shutting down that line of thought right the fuck now. Look at what we’re all going to focus really hard on thinking about: Not this. Besides, despite his words, the mere presence of another body with any kind of heat in it is already doing wonders, slowly seeping into his back. He feels muscles he hadn’t noticed tensing slowly unknot themselves, and sighs quietly in relief.

Dave leans his chin against the top of Karkat’s head, sighing in quiet contentment. He seems at ease, and maybe this moment of relative peace between them means that they can pretend this morning didn’t happen? _Or_ maybe it could turn out to be the prelude to another bout of misunderstanding and aggravation, until the sum of it all completely outweighs their combined ability to cowardly shove new problems under the knotted floor fabric.

Maybe, even though he hates the idea of bringing tension into this relatively restful moment, he should use it to try actually dealing with shit.

“Hey?”

“Mmm?” Dave sounds sleepy, but Karkat perseveres.

“Sorry for being so shitty to you this morning. I was unreasonably wound up about relatively minor shit, and I guess your weird brand of humor just tripped all my already trembling rage triggers... but, fuck, I’m not saying that’s an excuse. I just do this stupid thing where I get really fucking defensive and I keep backing myself into a corner until there is literally no choice except doubling down on being the biggest asshole in the room and showing the roaring gulf of my spinal crevice off to anyone unfortunate enough to be present.” He takes a deep, gulping breath, feeling like the whole apology has gotten way away from him and turned into the latest step on the Vantas Self Loathing tour. He’s pretty sure Dave doesn’t need this shit, and it’s beside the point anyway. “So... yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Dave is quiet behind him, his breathing so slow and measured that he must surely be putting conscious effort into controlling it. With the way his chin is pressed against his head, Karkat can feel a movement in his throat, then another, and another. As if he’s swallowing repeatedly, or maybe working on something he wants to say that clings to the inside of his mouth and tries to climb down into his chest once more. He waits, listening to the way the sounds of the sea below somehow manage to deepen the silence rather than fill it, and he tries not to squirm.

“I, uh- Well, I guess I should start out with saying ‘apology accepted’ so we have it out of the way and you can start breathing again.”

That’s the exact moment that Karkat realizes that he had indeed not been breathing while he waited, and chokes on the surprised and urgent gulp of air he draws in as a result of this realization. “Ffffu-hhhhhuckkk!”

“Right. Good. Would hate to have you slowly losing consciousness while I’m telling you this, because quite frankly this doesn’t seem to get any easier, and I really don’t wanna have to do this again.” He breathes out heavily, and Karkat feels his skin prickle as his breath ghosts over his horn beds and makes his hair flutter slightly. “It’s not the whole, you know, shouting and swearing and sarcasm, or the wild hyperbole that just keeps going and going as if you’ve been deep-throating Duracell Solar’s creepy AI bunny mascot all your life. I guess all of that is just who you are as a person, and I respect that.”

“Wow. Thank you so much, you heinous piece of fuck.”

“See? Like I said, it’s not that. I’m pretty cool with that.” There’s a hint of a smile in Dave’s voice, but also a note of uncertainty, and while Karkat rolls his eyes and mutters in response, he also squeezes his wrist briefly to urge him to go on. He seems to get the message, or maybe he’s decided to get it all out regardless of how he’s feeling. “I guess what it boils down to, if I’m putting the whole situation under pressure and raising the temperature and then staring my hideous mass of roiling insecurities and fucked-up memories down until that fucker blinks first... is that what got to me, probably, was just how you kept being critical while I was actually _trying_ to make it better.”

Dave doesn’t seem to have noticed it, but he’s closed his fist so tightly that now the arm draped over Karkat is trembling slightly with the tension. Tentatively, he slides his hand up and rubs gently at it with the pad of his thumb, trying to get Dave to unclench it. It’s unclear if the human notices or not, but at least the tension eases up somewhat.

“I mean, if I’d been trying to get a rise out of you - and honestly that’s so easy it’s like a waste of my talents, like putting floaties on a shark and tossing it in the kiddie pool... it’d be a massacre is what I’m saying. Anyway the point is if I was actually trying to antagonize you from the beginning, obviously I wouldn’t have minded a pretty harshly negative view of my actions, because that would’ve been the point.”

Karkat can feel heat spreading over his skin and knows it has nothing to do with the slowly warming blanket. “Wait, what are you-“

“Okay, no, don’t read too much into that. Repeat ‘humans don’t have quadrants’ to yourself until you find enlightenment. But also shut up, I’m almost done.” Karkat considers arguing because _honestly_ , but bites down on his tongue instead. Dave is trying to tell him something important, and he’s not about to fuck this up even more.

“But I really was trying to get to the point where I could apologize and everything would be cool, like not only for being late but for just fucking off in the morning like that. But you didn’t want to hear it and I couldn’t find a way to deescalate or even get across what I wanted to tell you. I just felt like I kept making it worse, and the big shitty twist was that there was no actual way I could do it right and that... feels bad, man.” There’s something there, like claws snagging on fabric but in his voice, or maybe in his chest. A hint of glance-over-the-shoulder tension, as if something is hunting him. “There’s stuff I don’t really wanna go into because it’s this...” He waves his arm suddenly in a sweeping gesture, and then drops his hand a bit sheepishly back into Karkat’s. “...this whole _thing_. Which is just too much to talk about right now. But the point is... you know the concept of a fight or flight response?”

“Fucking obviously, you primitive goddamn mammal.” Karkat pokes the back of Dave’s hand, which really isn’t a very satisfying way of expressing exasperation, but it’ll have to do. “What about it?”

“Well for... reasons, mine is pretty jacked up. The whole ‘flight’ part doesn’t work as it should. So sometimes I end up thinking I should shoot shit even though it’s not actually stuff you can fight, like explosions, or big rocks... or more abstract stuff like misunderstandings. It’s what always happens when I feel I can’t escape, which is a problem when like I said the whole ‘flight’ route doesn’t come naturally to me.” He lets out a hoarse little sound that might be a laugh, or at least an attempt at one. “Am I making any sense at all?”

“Not really, but I think I understand what you mean anyway.” Karkat places his other hand on top of Dave’s, tentatively holding it between his. “Chewing you out when you’re actually trying to get along makes you feel trapped for whatever undisclosed reasons... and that’s bad because it makes you want to shoot me?”

“Well, no, I don’t wanna shoot YOU, just... the whole situation. But you’re part of that and I don’t know how to deal, so... I had to force myself to get out of there because I still felt like I might.” A beat. “Holy shit, that’s so fucked up.”

Karkat suddenly feels himself relax slightly. “...Nah. That sounds fairly straightforward, actually.”

“Wait. It _does_?”

“Yeah, of course. I don’t know how humans solve shit, but you know, there’s a good fucking reason why trolls as a species need the conciliatory quadrants.” He shifts his shoulders a bit so he can turn around and look at Dave in the faint light. “You could say that we collectively don’t believe in ‘flight’ as an answer, and the higher up in the blood castes you get, the worse it is. Which is why my best friend once tried to go on a murder spree motivated by his blood caste’s capricious bullshit and pie withdrawal, and was only stopped because one of my friends was less dead and considerably more pissed than expected, and the other is just a straight-up sociopath. Oh, and before that, another friend had panicked and tried to shoot me.” He shrugs as Dave stares at him, feeling somewhat defensive at his obvious disbelief. “It’s just how things are, so before you open your ignorance shaft, I invite you to try some cultural sensitivity and not make a big fucking deal about it.”

Dave just shakes his head silently at first, lips pressed together as if he’s trying to hold onto something elusive. Then he lets out a small sigh, which turns into a laugh halfway through.

“You know what the weirdest part of this is?”

“What?”

“Imagining any of your friends doing anything that might hurt you.” Karkat twitches in earnest surprise which he cannot repress, and a ghost smile pulls at Dave’s lips. “I’ve seen them around you. They’re really goddamn protective, aren’t they? Closing ranks everywhere you go, guarding every angle. I was brought up to be a soldier, and they’re not being subtle about that shit. They really care about you, don’t they?” Dave’s voice comes out so soft, and for a moment Karkat has to close his eyes to keep the memories in.

_“It’s you they want anyway! Why should the rest of us have to die? I never said I wanted to die for this!”_

_“Didn’t you know, my invertebrother? It’s my sacred motherfucking duty to cull you. It always was.”_

“It’s... complicated.” He grimaces, rubbing a hand over his face. “But basically, that all happened a couple of sweeps ago. Nowadays, all of us have finally figured out that we’re all we’ve got. It’s just more practical to sort out our shit within the group, no matter what we might feel about it, than to fight each other.” Eridan must’ve figured out that there’s nowhere for him to run if he defects; all those bridges are well and truly burned by now. No mercy, no redemption. Her Imperious Condescension has never shown any of these, and her... allies aren’t known for it either.

As for Gamzee... Karkat isn’t sure exactly what tipped the scales there. They’ve made sure he’s never run out of pie again, kept him well away from other highbloods and their crazy goddamn cult. It’s been years now, and he’s never seen a trace of that other side of him, the one that spoke like silent blades in restless shadows, and then like crushing blows in utter darkness. He’s the same pitiable goofball he always was, and Karkat can only hope he stays that way.

When he finally opens his eyes, it’s to find Dave meeting his gaze steadily, one eyebrow slightly raised as if he’s just figured something out. Only Karkat can’t for the life of him tell what that might be. The scrutiny is making him pretty uncomfortable, though.

As if responding to his thoughts, Dave breaks eye contact, followed by a small dismissive motion of his head. Or maybe that was a nod? Karkat can’t tell. “Okay. I’m not gonna say that it’s not weird from a human perspective to hear you talk about all this like it’s no big thing, because sorry, it’s just kind of fucked up.”

Karkat can’t help but agree, but he refrains from saying so out loud. He just scowls impatiently, nudging Dave’s leg to encourage him to get to the point.

“And don’t think for a second I’m okay with that kind of cultural exchange between the two of us. I want to be on record as being all kinds of not cool with random murderous impulses regardless how culturally significant they happen to be, okay?” Karkat just rolls his eyes, but Dave’s exaggerated deadpan keeps him from actually kicking him. He’s not going to get a rise out of him on this. “But I guess it’s good that you don’t think I’m... shit, I don’t know. A worthless piece of garbage and completely messed up beyond your capacity to give a shit?”

Despite the way he phrases it, like it’s all some kind of a big joke, Karkat can sense the hesitation behind the words, a vulnerable mess of jagged old wounds. There’s something like pleading in his expression, something that Dave probably thinks he’s hiding way better than he does. It’s the darkness, Karkat realizes. Humans aren’t used to hiding their feelings in darkness, because other humans can’t see them. That’s why he’d turned down the lantern before taking off his glasses too. In darkness, they’re more vulnerable; paradoxically, that makes them feel like their feelings are more protected. But trolls, of course, can see in the dark.

He reaches out and puts a hand lightly on Dave’s cheek, feeling as if he’s edging dangerously close to pale territory, but Dave has nothing to go on but the faint glow of his own eyes. It somehow feels more fair to give him a tangible gesture beyond his words; words usually let him down. Dave jumps slightly at the touch, but doesn’t draw back. “You’re vastly underestimating my capacity to give a shit even about worthless pieces of garbage, since that describes almost everyone I know.” Fuck, that sounds terrible. His voice and his words are terrible. But for some reason, after a moment of stunned silence, Dave grins in response. “Look, can’t we just agree that I’ll try to be less of a raging asshole, and you- you can just tell me when something I’m doing is fucking with your head, alright? And that way maybe we can stop having some kind of diplomatic crisis every five fucking seconds?”

The air outside the blanket is still cold, but the small space the two of them inhabit is warm, the air between them loaded with so many complicated feelings, it feels heavy to breathe. Dave is relieved, Karkat can tell. He’d like to know more about what humans are like normally; he’d like to know what it is that makes Dave feel so broken. But in a way, he guesses that they’re approaching this from opposite ends.

After all, he’s never actually managed to convince himself of everything that he just told Dave. That this is really just how trolls are. That it’s not fundamentally fucked up, the way they treat each other. That there isn’t a better way; that it’s impossible to get there.

So maybe they’re both broken, only in opposite ways. Maybe that means there’s somewhere in the middle where they can meet each other.

Or maybe it means that only one of them is. That’s an even scarier thought, one that drags echoes of dreams in its wake, and burns like hot metal on flesh. Dave’s arm is still resting lightly across his chest, and Karkat unthinkingly draws closer to him. This time, as he closes his eyes, its to keep something _out_

Dave makes a soft little sound of surprise, but then he cautiously pulls his arm closer around Karkat, and he doesn’t say anything else. Maybe humans have things waiting for them in their dreams too; maybe that’s why they sleep together. It suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s hoping I managed to edit everything I needed to before I posted. One day I’ll have a computer again and The Struggle with autocorrect + adding formatting will be over :P


	14. The void, the fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New adventures beckon, the dark is full of secrets, some old wounds get a chance to mend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, this took a bit of time to write. I’ve been kind of hyperfocused on drawing lately - fanart, because of course - so that’s eaten some of my spare time. But don’t worry, I’ve got future Plot Ideas brewing + also there will be domestic stuff happening too because I’m a sucker for it. Thank y’all for your patience <3

Shadows flee across the ground as they make it down the steep slope of the rocky outcrop, on top of which Dave and Karkat’s new house is perched. Some of them are merely a result of the glow of Kanaya’s skin, kept bright for the sake of her human wife’s more feeble eyes, but Rose notices that some of the dark shapes moving across the ground have a more organic, skittering quality to them. Most of them are small, nothing to be concerned with, but she’s seen enough of the more ferocious fauna of this planet to be on her guard. Dave might no longer trust himself with one, but she finds the compact weight of her gun against the small of her back to be rather comforting.

Not that she imagines she’d need it even so. Ahead of the group, Aradia and Sollux are not even bothering to step on the uneven ground, hovering like silent ghosts. One is outlined in a faint blue-red corona, the other almost completely invisible in the dim light. Tight on their heels are Terezi, who for obvious reasons is traversing the darkness with more ease than even her dark-adapted friends, and Vriska. The latter might be less graceful about her descent, but even when the ground below her crumbles and briefly turns into a sandy slide it seems unable to knock her off her feet, so Rose must award her a few grudging points for sheer poise.

Flanking her and Kanaya on each side are Gamzee and Equius, great hulking shapes that are mostly noticeable by a flash of Gamzee’s fangs, a reflection off Equius’ shattered eyewear, the dim glow of their eyes. She knows Gamzee is carrying Tavros on his back, and Equius has his hastily dismantled wheelchair strapped to his. Even so, she can’t imagine anything that wouldn’t think twice about attacking either of them.

She knows Nepeta is _somewhere_ out there in the darkness, but the only sign of her presence is the occasional squeak of something dying, and the faint scrape of sharp claws encountering bone.

Bringing up the rear are Feferi and Eridan, assuring that anyone attacking the group would truly have to be suicidal. Admittedly they’re both a little clumsy on the brittle sandstone, but every time Rose glances back all she can see is light catching on an excessive amount of sharklike teeth, a gleaming trident and an impressively over-the-top rifle. She can hear the snap of a cape in the wind, the soft rustle of silks. Very dramatic. It’s hard to not approve.

“So,” Rose murmurs casually, causing Kanaya’s attention to snap back from contemplating the darkness around them, rather obviously scanning for dangers. “I take it that everyone being on guard has less to do with the relative danger right at this moment, and more with uneasiness springing from leaving one of your number behind.”

Kanaya frowns slightly, eyes darting towards a rattle of dislodged rocks somewhere further down the slope. “Expecting the worst at any given moment is only prudent,” she murmurs. “But no, I cannot say that we enjoy being split up... and perhaps we’re a bit more on edge than the situation strictly warrants.”

“Oh please!” Vriska is momentarily silhouetted, a paler shadow against the gaping void of the sky, as she scales a rocky outcrop. “More to the point, it wouldn’t be so bad if we were actually leaving a _competent_ member of our party behind. Not someone who still can’t stand seeing a little blood. _That_ ’s what everyone is worried about.”

Rose isn’t an expert, only having had so long to study troll culture, but she parses that in particular as, ‘leaving one of the softer, gentler members of our party to fend for himself feels unpredictable and scary’. She can sort of understand the sentiment, even though she’d long since been forced to admit that neither of those things are necessarily a weakness. She can see how trolls would view it differently, however.

Kanaya sighs in annoyance, but Rose notices that she doesn’t actually dispute what Vriska said. Her fingers tremble slightly as they lift her skirt out of reach of some kind of thorny, creeping vegetation. That won’t do.

“Well, for what it’s worth, he’s not actually left all on his own, is he?” Rose smiles a little wryly as Equius doesn’t bother to hide a derisive snort to her left, and she thinks she can detect a sarcastic note in the otherwise indecipherable series of clicks right behind her back. “I understand you might not necessarily be impressed with the abilities of humans by and large - I shall endeavor not to take this too personally. This will not be hard, as I actually do not care.” She can see Kanaya’s lips quirking slightly, and Terezi cackles up ahead. “I will however point out that while our society might be lacking in necessary competitiveness from your perspective, consider our family something of an exception. We were raised with a perchance somewhat exaggerated sense of our own superiority, and a burning obsession with living up to it. And aside from contributing to a number of truly delectable neuroses, it did in fact shape us into, among other things, formidable warriors.”

A moment of not entirely polite disbelief follows. Rose maintains her smile, searching in the darkness around her for the simple minds of small critters, like faint lights flickering before her inner vision. She locates the steady flame of a full consciousness which is trained on one of them in particular, biding her time until it makes its move. Then she pulls her gun in one fluid motion, aims and fires into the solid darkness. There is a brief dying squeal followed almost instantly by a startled hiss.

“That was my purrey!” Nepeta’s voice from the darkness sounds rather miffed. “Who killed it befur I could? Eridan?”

“Why the fuck would I bother doing something so pointless?” He sounds half insulted and half - and Rose notes this with a certain amount of smugness - impressed.

“And where exactly were you aiming?” demands Equius in an ominous growl. Rose returns his glare coolly, but someone else replies for her.

“Sh-she was aiming for the animal’s mind.” Tavros’ voice is a little shaken, as well as slightly muffled by the wild tangle of Gamzee’s hair, but he nonetheless sounds certain. “I could feel her holding it still right as she shot.”

“Just a demonstration,” Rose says smoothly, returning the gun to its holster. “I will admit that’s a little trick my brother doesn’t know, but on the other hand... out of the four of us, I’m the worst shot. Which is to say I’m still excellent at it, just not as good as my siblings.”

It was a little showy, perhaps, but she’s already noticed that trolls don’t often deal in subtleties, so it should suit them. Besides, she might as well indulge in her own sense of drama when she can; she does enjoy it so. Kanaya looks startled, her eyes following Rose’s hands as if re-evaluating them, weighing her new knowledge.

“Humans can do that?” Rose can’t decide if Vriska’s voice is accusatory or intrigued. Perhaps both?

“We don’t have any natural aptitude for it the way you do. For us it’s strictly an acquired skill, and it takes a lot of work, not to mention a few modifications by someone already gifted.” Rose grimaces slightly, remembering the claustrophobic chamber, the pressure of his voice against her mind, the feeling like an incision, the light... the _light_ , the green light... and somewhere, her own voice, her scream muffled through the gag. “Some complete asshole taught me. But it does come in handy at times.”

She can feel a probing mind touching hers only a moment later, and hastily gathers up the jagged edges of her memories and buries them deep within. She senses a shape made out of predatory bright light and edges, ravenous and unflinching. Not a pure hunter like Nepeta’s had been, steady and clear; this is the mind of an omnivore, an adapter. Much like her own, and yet so very alien. She gently rebuffs it, and can feel a hint of Vriska’s reluctant acknowledgment before she pulls away.

“So... Dave would really be able to defend Karcrab in an emergency?” Feferi sounds hesitant, but at least a bit hopeful. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to doubt you. Most humans just seem very soft to us, and your brother is... rather unlike you.”

“You mean the ridiculous rambling and pathological need for attention?” Rose smiles slightly. “Though honestly, all four of us would probably wither and die without the latter... our need just expresses itself differently.” Personally she had never cared if the attention was negative or not, even takes dark enjoyment in the antipathy she can draw to herself. Dirk is the same, but he also tends to believe the negative opinions of him that inevitably follow. Roxy revels in positive attention, but doesn’t actually give a fuck about the negative side most of the time. And Dave... Dave will happily antagonize and provoke, confuse and aggravate, but any actual hostility directed at him will get under his skin every time. He can’t help it.

He really is soft in a lot of ways. Soft and surprisingly vulnerable. But far from defenseless.

“There’s that, yes, and... well, you rather gave me the impression that the two of them are... alike, in some ways.” Kanaya glances sideways at her, a faint smile pulling at her lips. “For our species, Karkat is fairly unique. It’s honestly hard to even imagine him with an established kismesis. Knowing anyone well enough to truly hate them would mean that he’d start seeing the parts which deserve compassion and understanding, and he probably couldn’t help feeling pity for them instead. It’s... kind of a personality flaw in a troll, but sometimes- sometimes a flaw is necessary.”

Rose’s ears pick up a string of muted, exasperated clicking from up ahead, and she thinks maybe it came from Terezi. She’s not entirely sure. Kanaya is being very cautious with her words, but there is something almost like reverence in her tone. Something to take note of, perhaps. “In certain contexts, ‘flaw’ is really just another word for ‘mutation’,” Rose points out, her voice impassive. “And a mutation is sometimes the next step in evolution.”

Kanaya’s eyes widen slightly, and when she speaks, her voice is even more controlled than before, like someone carefully assembling a jigsaw with a pair of tweezers. “Yes, those are certainly words that mean things, as you said.” Out in the darkness, the other trolls are being very, _very_ silent now.

Interesting. But she probably shouldn’t push it.

“As for my brother, you’re not exactly wrong. I’ve also noticed that the two of them are rather similar, as you say. But...” She sighs, eyes trailing the momentary streaks of a brief meteor shower up above. “Even if he’s not a warrior by inclination, he’s certainly one by practice, not to mention sheer skill. He’ll do what’s necessary, and like the rest of us, he’ll always protect what’s his. That, if anything, is a family trait.”

They may not understand the concept of family, but from what she has been able to decipher so far about their culture, evidence suggests that it’s a prominent troll trait too. The change in the silence around her seems to indicate as much. In a strange way, Rose suspects that no flashy display of power would’ve had quite the same impact as those simple words.

Gamzee lets out a low laugh, somehow good-natured and slightly ominous at the same time. “Shiiiiit, now you’re all up and speaking our language, aren’t you?” Rose remembers what Kanaya had told her about him before, and notes how her new wife’s fingers twitch slightly in response. She also notices how Aradia turns around in midair ahead, and the rustle behind her as Eridan casually shifts his rifle into a new position. Gamzee doesn’t appear to notice, or maybe he just pretends not to.

“You’re still wearing a translation tick, dipshit,” Sollux points out dismissively.

“Whoa.” Gamzee lets out another laugh, this time without any of the previous tension. “Fuck, you’re right.” Another beat, and a flash of a fanged grin among shadows. “I’m still pretty fucking glad that my best motherfucking friend has found more people to look out for him. He’s gonna need it.”

“Gamzee?” Vriska’s voice in the dark is a little too sweet, giving it a razor blade in cotton candy quality. “Shut up.”

Wandering through the dark, surrounded by volatile and powerful aliens she doesn’t understand yet, Rose smiles. There’s something here. Something huge and unsaid, something that is no doubt going to unravel with all of them at the heart of it, and take the world as they know it with it. And while she’ll do anything to make sure her loved ones aren’t hurt by it, there is no way she can help how her heart starts beating faster, her fingers curling, her muscles tensing. She recalls one particularly smug line Doc Scratch had left behind in her mind, one that had irked her at the time.

_After all, you’re exactly the kind of person who will stare into the void until you can see yourself reflected there, not understanding that the mere act of looking is what creates the reflection in the first place. Before we’re through with each other, Rose, you will have learned as much._

It was true, as most of his more infuriating insights often were. But at the time she’d thought he’d tried to point out a bug, not a feature. Now she’s not so sure.

“You know, that’s a scary expression you’re wearing,” Kanaya mumbles by her side.

“Oh.” Rose shakes her head, willing herself back to the present. “I’m sorry.”

Kanaya sighs, reaching out and taking her hand to guide her down a steep patch of brambles. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, did I?”

 

* * *

 

It’s going to take a couple of days to get the electricity set up properly in Karkat’s and Dave’s new home, mostly because once Dirk and Jade poke around a bit in the wiring, they come to the conclusion that it could all be made a lot more reliable and efficient with just a few changes. Roxy rolls her eyes a bit at that, but Dirk is pretty sure that she’ll have a lot more fun setting up the computerized side of things if the system they’re rigging is a bit more advanced.

In the meanwhile, everyone else works on making the place a bit more like a home. The people from the village had done their best to make the place habitable, cozy even, but for two people to actually maintain an existence there for the foreseeable future? That’s going to take a lot more work.

So Jake and Jane set to putting together a coop where some animals can be kept, the latter also serving to remind the former to take breaks and go easy on his arm. That’s a relief for Dirk, who is all too aware that he’d give into his tendency to hover otherwise, and right now he really doesn’t want to immediately sour things between him and Jake by being too pushy. He wishes there was an actual tactful way to thank Jane for taking over nagging duties, but he’s not a complete goddamn idiot.

The rest of the humans present work on moving the food that was unloaded down in the village up to the house, along with Dave’s personal items. The trolls engage in something similar, bringing up strange rations and various items of their intriguingly organic technology from the other side of the border. Honestly, Dirk can’t wait to have an extensive poke at it, and while Sollux had extensively insulted him while he first looked it all over, he’s starting to suspect that’s just how the guy talks to people. So he’d done the only sensible thing, which was to insult him right back, albeit more subtly, and hopefully this means he’ll have someone who might be willing to give him a crash course on the stuff later. Maybe? He’s still not sure how to talk to these aliens... but since he’s never been good at talking to humans either, he supposes it’s fine.

The _real_ fun will start once Roxy figures out the troll computers, he suspects. The trolls won’t know what hit ‘em.

As a compromise with their nocturnal neighbors, they do most of the work in the morning and evening, which suits Dirk fine. Some of the rewiring of the place has to be done from outside, and there is probably no amount of sunscreen in the known universe which would prevent him from slowly shedding his own skin under the desert midday sun. And this way, it leaves them with the dubious pleasure of getting to know the rest of the aliens better.

Mostly, he just watches them, mentally tallying up their strengths, potential weaknesses, possible strategies for fighting both alongside and against them. Perhaps it’s a bit of a character flaw to think of new acquaintances that way, but Dirk considers that he has more than enough proof that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Most of them move like people who are used to fighting, albeit in very different ways. Fiddling with a hopeless tangle of wire and hoping that whoever was responsible for it still lies awake at night to ponder their shame, he idly sorts the trolls into different categories based on perceived viciousness, weapon proficiency, tenacity, brute strength, and... other talents. Of course it’s the mind powers that are the biggest unknown factors. It’s annoyingly hard to judge someone’s strength based mostly on pure speculation regarding the potential of their powers. He’s fought other aliens with similar capabilities, but that experience really says very little about how trolls might apply them in similar situations.

Sollux looks like a stiff breeze could knock his gangly frame over, but with that mind combined with the ease and precision with which he uses his psionic abilities? He’d clearly make a formidable opponent. As for Aradia... she’s petite, moves with erratic grace, not quite like a fighter but not like someone who wouldn’t put up a fight either. Earlier, he’d seen her clear away some large rocks from the shoreline below by flinging them so far out to sea, the following splash was impossible to hear.

He’d need more data to make a proper assessment, but it’s always best to simply assume the worst.

He’s been informed by Rose that the girl with the cutting voice and the strange left eye is a telepath of some sort. He likes that even less, because she seems dangerous enough without any such powers. Not to mention how those kind of abilities are just bad news to begin with. He remembers when Rose has first acquired the same skill, how he’d asked her to test how hard it would be to take him over. As an experiment. She had declined, but after a moment of intense silence, had hesitantly added that she thought it would be quite hard to accomplish. That his rigid command over his thoughts would be nearly impossible to get past.

He’d heard the unspoken caveat in her voice, and had asked if that wasn’t a good thing. Sighing, Rose had admitted that it both was and wasn’t. A mind like his - like hers too, to a lesser degree - was like a fortress, she said. Hard to break into, yes, but once the enemy is inside? It becomes just as hard for the original occupant to reclaim it. You could end up shut out forever by your own obsessive self-control. By contrast, someone with a more flexible mind might be more easily swayed by outside influences, but they would be much harder to keep out. Like water, they would always come flowing in through all the little cracks which people like Dirk would never allow to exist in the first place.

For people like them, the stakes of such games are always higher, that’s what Rose has said. People who don’t know how to bend will splinter instead.

He grimaces, reaching into the hopelessly lashed together mess that’s supposed to hook up the tower to the backup generator down by the shore. They’re going to have to reconnect the whole thing.

“Jade? The wire strippers... thanks. How’s the battery going?”

“Well, it’s not a great big gross lump anymore! I think I’ve worked out a way to make sure the damp stays out too.”

“Good.”

Dirk frowns for a moment, then lets muscle memory once again take over as he resumes his assessment of the aliens. He has a hard time getting a read on one of the two enormous highbloods as well. One of them is simple enough to gauge, clearly the kind of person to rely on his considerable strength in battle - from what he’s seen, he’s got relatively few choices in the matter, since it appears to make him unsuitable for many martial disciplines. Dude just keeps breaking shit.

The other one though... It’s not that the whole bumbling, affable giant thing is an act, not exactly. But sometimes, just for a moment, that guy moves less like a sloth and more like a praying mantis. The others are cautious of him too. Some history there, clearly.

If he’s to guess which ones to watch most closely, it’s that one, the telepath, and the whiny seadweller. The latter admittedly mostly because Dirk personally thinks he lacks backbone, and certainly not because Jake seems to inexplicably enjoy his company. Definitely not. Okay, maybe a bit, but if a guy can’t at least be allowed to be biased in his own head, things will have come to a pretty pass.

As for people he’d most like on his side in a fight, it would probably be Equius, Sollux and Terezi. Maybe Nepeta too, and depending on the planet, Tavros - if Rose’s guess that _his_ powers work specifically on non- or semi sentient life forms is accurate. It’s probably pretty telling that he bases this on which trolls seem easiest to direct or at the very least co-operate with. He’s always disliked following anyone else’s direct orders, but at the same time he cannot entirely condone his sisters’ tendency to reject all authority when they feel like it.

He jumps slightly as something brushes against his leg, then realizes that it’s just Roxy’s cat. She’d left him to roam around the site as they worked. Inexplicably to Dirk, since he’s had to make a fair number of painful adjustments to the animal’s prosthesis, the creature seems to have taken a liking to him. He’s never really been an animal person, but Bartholomeow doesn’t appear to care.

“Do I look like I have food for you, idiot?” he mumbles, swatting half-heartedly at the cat. The cat replies by excitedly batting at his hand. Then he focuses on one of the dangling wires, body tensing in preparation for the pounce. “Oh hell no. Go on, scram. This is not a goddamn playground. Roxy, come get your cat.”

She just laughs at him, as he’d known she would. What if he just... scoots the cat away with his foot? Okay, now he has a kitten hanging from his foot, chewing at his shoelaces. This is not an improvement. Shit.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” There’s a noise somewhere between an exasperated sigh and a laugh, and then Jane is gently scooping up the cat in her arms. He wriggles, but Jane just flips him onto his back and starts scratching his chin, and soon the kitten is rumbling happily with his feet in the air.

“... Thanks.”

“I’ve never seen anyone so helpless in the face of small, defenseless animal,” Jane replies with a small, hesitant smile. He’d really expected her to walk off, but instead she leans her back against the wall of the tower and eases herself down onto the ground.

Dirk shrugs, turning his eyes back to his work, because he has no fucking clue what else he’s supposed to do. “It doesn’t listen, and I don’t want to hurt it. So my options were pretty limited.” Fuck, he can’t believe he just said that. He’s officially a tool.

He can _hear_ her rolling her eyes, which really just cements the matter. Jane is generous, but she has a stated bullshit capacity, and he just completely demolished it. “He just wanted a bit of attention. Cats aren’t actually that hard to understand, Dirk.”

“I’m busy.” Shit, did that sound dismissive? Is he being an asshole? Probably. Goddamn it.

Jane sighs. “We’re in no hurry, you know. Taking a break to distract a kitten wouldn’t hurt. Or just to get a bite to eat.” She nods in the direction of a bag next to her on the ground. “Go on, I brought some sandwiches.”

Dirk hesitates, but... well, he hasn’t talked properly to Jane ever since the wedding. He’s not going to make anything better by turning down a simple, friendly gesture just to be stubborn. She’s obviously trying to meet him halfway, which is more than he’s accomplished these past couple of days.

“Here, let me.” Jade suddenly reaches past him, grabbing the wire strippers from his hand and scooting him sideways at the same time. It’s a conspiracy, then. Especially since Jade winks at him, and what is worse, her other eye turns from green to red for just a split second.

Lousy goddamn loving friends. Lousy goddamn interfering AI which he admittedly created himself.

Sitting down next to Jane, he allows his gaze to momentarily flicker over to the half-assembled animal coop, only to find no trace of Jake there. He’s absolutely sure that his eyes couldn’t have been visible behind his shades, and that his expression hasn’t changed even slightly, and still Jane chuckles a bit dryly. “I had to argue with him to get him to go sit down for a while. I could see him grimacing, and his range of motion was limited, but he just refuses to be sensible about it. I hate having to pull the medic card on him again and again, but it’s the only thing he’ll listen to when he gets contrary.”

Dirk frowns, pausing in the middle of reaching for a sandwich. “I’m sorry. I’ll see if I can work on balancing the damn thing again as soon as I-“

Jane gives his shoulder an exasperated little nudge with hers, careful not to jostle the kitten in her arms. “The prosthesis is fine, Dirk. More than fine - your work is, as always, impeccable. That’s not the problem.” She looks tired, he notices now that he’s sitting so close to her. “The problem is that it’s going to take a lot of adjusting, and he’s going to have to learn to be patient with himself. And no matter how much he works at it, it’s still never going to be his real arm. I think he knows that’s the real trouble, deep down, but he doesn’t want to accept it.”

Dirk can’t say much to that. If it was him, he knows he’d be just as bad. No, correction, he’d be a million times _worse_. And from the way she’s looking so pointedly at him, Jane knows that too. “Where is he now?”

“Oh, he stormed off in a huff.” She shrugs, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Lucky for us that he’s never been able to hold a grudge for more than five minutes, isn’t it?”

He can feel the corners of his lips lifting slightly in response, and Jane’s smile widens a bit. It feels almost like it used to, before he let his insecurities about Jake grow into an obstacle between them, an awkward elephant in every room they were together in. “You... just knew I was looking for him, huh.” It’s not exactly a question, but she answers it anyway, her voice soft.

“You’re always looking for him, Dirk. It’s what you do.”

He can’t dispute that at all. He grimaces slightly, running a hand through his hair. “Not sure of it makes me sound less or more creepy when you say it like that.”

She snorts, startling the now dozing cat slightly with the sound. “Well, I’m not sure what that makes me, if that’s your takeaway.”

There it is. They haven’t acknowledged it at all ever since the explosion, the day when he got her and Jade out of the flames. He remembers how angry he had been at first, when she had run into the inferno without a plan, as if she didn’t care that she was just going to kill herself as well. But then he’d found her covering Jade with her own body, and he’d understood. If she hadn’t done what she did when she did it, Jade probably wouldn’t have lasted long enough for his plan to mean jack shit. They are both the kind of person who will run into fires for other people, but the way they think about it is fundamentally different. And in the end, it took both of them to bring Jade home.

They needed each other. He needs his friend. He’d decided to tell her as much, but she had been way ahead of him yet again once they were back home. They’d talked long into the night as they waited for word of Jade’s situation, comforted each other in what ways they could. She generously, he awkwardly at best. They’d admitted things to each other they’d refused to talk about before, and it had been a relief to finally be open about it.

The next day, her demeanor toward Jake had completely changed. _That_ wasn’t something she had mentioned during that night, and she brushed Dirk off when he tried to ask about it later, but he had nonetheless wondered. He’d known for damn sure that nobody just got over those kind of feelings that quickly.

“Jane, I- shit.” She leans against his arm, and he tries not to tense up. It’s the least she can do. “I don’t think that. About you.” Way up ahead, a couple of winged creatures wheel against the softly darkening sky in lazy circles. “If you want me to be honest about it, I think you’re too damn good for either of us.” _I wish I could be more like you._ Hell no, he’s not saying that. She’d probably sock him, and to be honest he’d deserve it.

“And what good does being too good for others do anyone?” Her reply comes out sharp, and Dirk winces.

“Yeah, you’re right. That was a moronic thing to say. I know that doesn’t help at all, I just wanted you to know-“

“No, Dirk. It’s fine.” She sounds resigned. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I- I do this thing, where I decide to be the bigger person, because I tell myself that’s what will make everyone happy. But that doesn’t actually work if I go around feeling sorry for myself all the time, and getting angry with people for doing what I decided was best for them in the first place.” She laughs quietly, though it sounds more like a sigh, and then reaches for the bag with the food. “Eat your sandwich, Dirk. Just holding it doesn’t actually accomplish much.”

They sit in silence as they eat, but somehow it doesn’t actually feel that bad. Like the tension is once again starting to release between them. Fuck him if he’s going to look back at this conversation and feel like he was completely useless, though.

“Look, I realize that this is exactly the kind of thing I’m shit at, and that doesn’t seem like it’s going to change in a hurry.” He scrunches up the waxed sandwich paper in his hands, and then drops it on top of the kitten in Jane’s lap. That appears to be the right thing to do, because the little shit acts like it’s his birthday come early, and Jane smiles. “But I don’t want to seem like I’m not trying to make this work either. Shit, with everything that’s happened, we all need each other more than ever. I don’t want to be the one selfish fuck who doesn’t even try so long as he gets whatever prime cut of ass he wants.”

“I don’t think you’re selfish, Dirk-“

“That would make you a terrible judge of character, Crocker. And I know you’re not. So try again from the top with less bullshit.”

“Oh, alright, fine! I don’t think you’re _unreasonably_ selfish, does that suit your self-deprecating baloney better?”

How’s he supposed not to laugh a bit at that? “Acceptable.”

“Well, it’s true that you can be a bit of a pillock at times, emotionally speaking, but heaven knows you’re not the only one.” She rolls her bright blue eyes, and now they’re both smiling for a moment, before she grows more somber. “But I don’t actually blame you for doing what makes you happy, you know? Or for- oh goodness, don’t mind me...” She looks away, her eyes suddenly a bit shiny. With her neck at this angle, he can clearly see where the flames licked across her skin, forever staining it in darker shades of brown and pink, leaving it shiny and distorted. “...for doing what makes him happy to.”

He wants to ask her what he’s supposed to do if he finds out that he can’t. If being with him won’t actually make Jake happy. But the words won’t come. It seems like such a cruel thing to ask. “So I can do that and still be friends with you? It seems pretty fucking lopsided when you put it like that. All for me and nothing for you.”

She raises her eyebrows then, exasperated and amused at once. “Yes, what could I possibly get out of having a friend who will get me out of actual fire if needed, Dirk? Honestly, for a clever guy, you sure are dense sometimes.”

“Right. I guess you’ve got a point.” It still seems like a pretty lame exchange rate for having to put up with his bullshit, but he’s not going to make her have to argue about it on top of everything else. That kind of whiny, self-serving nonsense is at least one way he’s never going to test the patience of his friends. “Thanks, Jane.”

“Thank you too, Dirk. Lets be patient with one another, alright?” She extracts one arm from under the cat, wrapping it around his waist for a quick hug and cheek kiss. The she somehow manages to get to her feet while still cradling the cat. “Now if you excuse me,” her voice is back to its usual briskness, “I’m going to properly introduce Bartholomeow to Nepeta... and take him off your helpless hands, you brave warrior you.”

And just like that, she’s walking away, carefully sidestepping some project involving a lot of fabric which Kanaya and Rose appears to have marshaled John into helping them with. The sound of high-pitched excitement a moment later suggests that the kitten has found a delighted and attentive audience for all its adorable shit. Dirk hesitates where he sits, but after some internal sparring can’t help but to conclude that the only way of learning where to draw the line between ‘overbearing’ and ‘normally supportive actual goddamn adult’ is to try it out. So he gets up as well, brushing the dust off his pants, and turns to Jade.

“I’ll be back in a while.”

She looks up distractedly, smiling. “Oh, right. He went that way, by the way.”

“...Damn it, Harley.”

“Hmmm?” She’s already returned to work, sticking her head into the compartment previously occupied by all those wires.

“Oh nothing. I’m clearly fighting a losing battle here anyway. Gotta admit when you’re defeated, and the shit’s written on the wall for all to see. Perform some kind of inscrutability seppuku to formally let everyone know that you’re officially retreating.”

She just giggles, the sound echoing as she scoots further inside the wall. “Go get your boyfriend, silly.”


	15. All in the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past deeds move fast, but what was left undone moves faster still. New bonds are tentatively made, old ones remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here’s a really fast new chapter to make up for how slow the last one one ^^; I’m not sure I can quite keep up this speed, but if we’re lucky I’ll find some middle ground. Thank you all so much for the encouraging words you’ve left so far, it’s lovely to have such engaged readers <3

It’s still far too bright outside for any respectable person to hang around outside, but fuck knows he doesn’t want another lecture from the princess about having to compromise with the primitive aliens. Only she doesn’t say it like that, of course not. She goes on and on about finding common ground and reaching out and how they honestly do not have the luxury to be choosy about allies and anyway she’s sure if he just gave them a chance... She usually starts out patient and cheerful, but if he argues she’ll slip quickly into her exasperated, clipped voice, the one she reserves almost exclusively for him and which Eridan hates. But at least it’s not as bad as the pleading voice.

The point is, it’s easier to just put up with it. With the light, the unreasonable hour, the sensory confusion caused by the heat radiating off the ground, the stupid humans. Better to not be rocking the proverbial nautical vessel, even if that kind of caution is really only important for chumps who cannot breathe underwater.

Fef is watching the Roxy human scale the outside of the tower now, giggling at her antics. Then she suddenly takes off herself, powerful legs propelling her up the side of the structure, using her greater strength and reach to overtake Roxy with a laugh and a triumphant toss of her heir. Really showing off how competitive and wild she can be, under that bullshit saccharine facade. As if that’s not just so _completely_ transparent.

Whatever, it’s not his business. Hasn’t been in a long time. It’s just kind of sad how obvious she’s being about it, and at the same time neither she nor the alien girl are probably even aware of it. Maybe he can mention it to Kar later, he’d probably get a blast out of analyzing it. He could no doubt do with something to distract him, what with the whole shitstorm he’s caught up in now.

...Then again, he probably won’t. For one thing, the others _still_ don’t trust him around Kar alone, which is just so fucking unfair. It’s not like he’s ever tried to kill him again or anything. But you make one little mistake, and people will brand you for life over it. And Kar on his end seems to maybe have forgiven him for trying to kill him, but he’s still sore about him shooting Kan instead. It’s not even like he did _that_ on purpose... and she turned out fine, didn’t she?

Even so, just because everyone else wanted to make a big deal out of it, he’d gone to her and asked her forgiveness. She had given it, too, albeit accompanied with some extremely graphic descriptions of what she’d do to him if he ever tried to hurt Kar again. Graphic enough that a guy could get quite the wrong idea, if he didn’t know her better and also maybe knew better than to push her when she had that glint in her eye.

None of them really trusts him anymore. But he’s going to show them all, isn’t he? One day the thing he’s been working on in secret, the thing Fef has been giving him free reigns at without even asking any questions, will be complete. Soon. Then they’ll know they shouldn’t have underestimated him. It reaches far now, almost all the way to the human settlements. They’ll see, too. They’ll all see.

Eridan turns his head demonstratively away from that abominable display of interspecies flirting, shielding his eyes against the brighter sky at the horizon, and makes a few bitter clicking noises at the back of his thorax - but not loud enough for anyone to hear. Just in time, as it turns out, to see Jake jumping off a rocky ledge a bit off the track and disappearing from view, followed by a sound of sliding rocks and some muffled swearing. Eridan hesitates, but although he’s definitely a complete goddamn idiot and wouldn’t know cultural refinement if it bit him, Jake makes for less odious company than the rest of his entire species. No harm in at least checking up on him.

Picking his way across the uneven ground, he leans cautiously over the ledge to peer below, aware that he probably weighs more than the squishy mammal, prosthetic limb notwithstanding. He finds Jake sprawled on the ground a bit further down the slope, awkwardly attempting to sit up while trying not to move his robot arm at all. It’s a pretty pathetic display.

“Oh for fuck’s sake... just hold still, will you?” He swings himself off the ledge, managing to keep his balance pretty easily now that Jake has taken almost all the loose rocks with him. Stalking down to the startled human, he bends down and easily yanks him into a sitting position, causing Jake to wince and stifle a whimpering sound. So much for gratitude. Lowering himself onto the ground next to him, Eridan gives the human a nudge with his shoulder. “What did you think you were accomplishing anyway, knowing you can’t even keep yourself properly balanced like this?”

Jake gives him a slightly put-upon look, but then sighs and drags the fingers of his healthy hand through his hair, leaving a streak of umber dust behind. “Just typical that you’d have to bear witness to my spectacular pratfall on top of all the other ways I’ve made a fool of myself presently. I have to say, Mr Ampora, that I’m not exactly on the top of my game today.”

Eridan just shrugs, shifting on the uneven ground to find a more comfortable spot, and then gives up with a frustrated little grunt. “How would I even be able to tell the difference? You humans are a thoroughly embarrassing species overall.”

Jake inexplicably lets out a quiet snort of laughter, bumping his shoulder against Eridan’s in turn. He’s done this before, acted as if the insults Eridan slings in his direction as a matter of course are somehow to be considered rapier wit, rather than the abuse it’s intended as. It was just as baffling then as it is now. Humans are so strange and stupid. Is this what comes of not having proper caliginous relationships, not even understanding when someone is trying to antagonize you?

“To be honest though, I don’t feel falling squarely on the ole derrière ranks particularly high on today’s buffoon-o-meter.” And now he goes and puts his hand all dramatically on his forehead, leaving a brown smear across it too. Eridan starts digging through his pockets with ill grace. “I really didn’t put my best foot forward back there with Jane. I hope you didn’t have to bear witness to _that_ regrettable episode.”

Despite saying the exact opposite, he seems somehow hopeful that Eridan might know what he’s talking about. He snarls impatiently. “You are wildly overestimating how interesting your human interpersonal nonsense is. Why the fuck should I have been watching?” Also, the Jane human had said she would rip his fins off if he came close to her again. The nerve! “But if you want to talk about it then I _guess_ I have nothing better to do than put up with it at the moment.”

Finally finding the handkerchief he was looking for, he reaches out and brusquely grabs Jake by the chin. The human’s eyes widen and he flinches slightly, but Eridan only tightens his grip. “You’ve made a fucking mess a yourself, idiot. You can talk about how you fucked up with the girl who apparently isn’t your moirail because humans don’t have those or whatever, even though she hangs around and stops you from doing stupid shit to yourself, which is probably the closest you ever get to being properly destructive. Just let me clean you up, it’s disgusting to be frank.” Jake’s skin is markedly warmer than his own, just like a lowblood’s. He knows they don’t have a hemospectrum, but did anyone actually say what color of blood humans have? If they did, he missed it.

Whatever it is, it’s probably gross.

Jake just sits still as he roughly rubs the muddy smear off his forehead, eyes wide and mouth half open, as if he’s confused by something. Damn it, why is he even wasting time on this idiot? He has no real answer, but nonetheless also runs the fabric across Jake’s head to catch the worst of the mess in his hair. Once he’s done, he presses the handkerchief into Jake’s hand with an impatient gesture. “Hang on to it until you’ve had a chance to wash it, will you? I don’t want it while it’s covered with human body fluids.”

Jake looks down at the handkerchief for a moment, and then suddenly grins at him, wide and guileless and absolutely fucking free of any sign of intelligence. Blunt teeth, like the rest of them. What’s even the point of them - his nubby teeth or humans as a whole, take your pick really. “Golly, I guess I was making a bit of a spectacle of myself there. Thank you kindly, good sir.”

“Ugh, I have no idea what you actually talk like as a human, but in translation you should know that you sound like a monstrous tool.”

Jake laughs a bit sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders and then grimacing in pain as he jostles his robot arm. How helpless can one human get? Revolting. “Yeouch... That sure is what people keep telling me, but I feel like I’d be a right old pushover if I let that stop me! Wouldn’t you say that’s no way for a man of stout heart and integrity to behave?”

“What? Listening when other people tell you that you’re making an idiot a yourself? Fucking forgive me, but I thought that was your whole problem that you wanted to discuss, wasn’t it?”

He laughs, but also slumps a little bit in defeat where he sits. “Well, I suppose when it comes to this whole kerfuffle with Jane, you’ve put your finger right on the crux of it! I know she’s only thinking of what’s best for me, like a true chum would, and also she is sort of my doctor. But... Blast it, I suppose I just can’t help feeling like I’m being nannied from every direction, like everyone is walking on eggshells around me. I’m not sure why, but sometimes it feels like everyone is keeping secrets from me, as if I’m just too darn half-baked to understand what’s going on.” He lets out an explosive sigh, twiddling the handkerchief distractedly. “You may think I’m an idiot-“

“Fucking obviously.”

“-and that this is clearly all just silly old paranoia. And you’re right! But it’s hard to shake, and I end up taking it all out on Jane and Dirk.”

“Well, if you want my advise, your matesprit ought to be aware that this is what you’re like by now, so if he can’t take it he’s obviously not for you.” He hesitates, and then reluctantly mutters, “Then again, I never had _any_ fucking luck in that quadrant, so what the fuck do I even know?”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that Dirk is prepared to deal with some of my moody horseshit on a regular basis, and he’s certainly tough enough to take it.” His light brown skin darkens slightly, and Eridan isn’t entirely sure if the blush means the same as it would for a troll. It seems likely, though. “But I suppose I just don’t want to be a person you have to _handle_ all the time... do you see what I mean?”

“...Yeah. I guess I really do.” It’s one the saddest and most vulnerable thing he’s ever been somehow tricked into admitting about himself, so it’s a bit strange how much of a relief it is to say it.

“See, somehow I just knew you would!”

“...Is that a fucking insult, human?”

“Not at all.” He slaps Eridan’s arm in what appears to be jovial gesture. “It’s just nice to have someone understanding around to advice me in this - someone who isn’t directly involved, or already sick to death of my angsty hooey.”

“Who says I’m not? I’ve had all of five minutes a this useless shit.” To his surprise, Eridan finds himself having to bite back a smile as Jake chuckles next to him. He notices something behind them at this point, but decides to ignore it for now. “But fine, if you want some fucking advice, how about this: You could just get over it already. The arm thing, I mean.”

Jake visibly tenses up, but Eridan decides that fuck it, he asked for this. “I don’t get what you’re even complaining about, to be honest. I mean, that thing is _clearly_ an upgrade on the feeble mammal limb you had before, right? How is that even a contest?”

Jake glances away, his healthy arm wrapping around the robot limb in a manner that is either protective or humiliated... possibly both. “I’m not sure ‘upgrade’ is the right word something that makes me screw up royally at everything I used to be able to do.”

“So what? I mean, obviously it will be different, it’s not your actual fucking arm. You’re not getting that back anyway, though, and if that’s what you’re upset about then just say that.” He shrugs irritably, reaching out and tapping the metal of the prosthetic limb, causing Jake to flinch. “But instead you got something that’s able to do things your old arm never could, right? So why throw a fit over all the ways it’s different, when you could try to learn to use this thing instead? Seems to me you’re just trying to use what’s no longer there over and over, when you should be learning how to use what you have.”

Jake stares at him, mouth open as if to argue, expression tense and raw. Eridan grimaces, pretty sure he just went _way_ too far, and as usual completely unable to back up or off. “All I’m saying,” he mumbles a bit lamely, looking away, “is maybe you have to do things you used to differently now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do them, or that your new way is any _worse_ or anything. And if there’s some things you can’t do no longer, fine, you can’t. Someone else can do that. Stop wasting time on that and figure out what you _can_ do instead.”

Jake draws in a deep breath, and then just holds it, as if he’s trying to figure out all the ways he’s about to tell Eridan to go fuck himself. Well, great. Fan-fucking-tastic. A friendship officially ruined in thirty seconds, after just a couple of days. That must be a new record, even for him.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, I- wait. What?”

“Thank you,” Jake repeats simply. When Eridan turns around to see if the human is fucking with him, there are tears in his eyes, which he hurriedly tries to rub away with the back of his hand. The hand that is _still holding the handkerchief_. Amazing. “I appreciate- I appreciate your honest and forthright opinion on the matter, and you’re right.”

“I- I am?” Wait, shit, why does he sound so surprised at that? Well, besides not being sure if anyone’s ever actually been happy for his advice before, that is. He could at least pretend like this isn’t the first time he managed to say the right thing.

“You most certainly are.” Jake sighs, and then finally seems to recall that he’s holding a piece of fabric that is a lot more absorbent than the heel of his hand. He dabs at his eyes with it, offering a slightly damp grin when Eridan rolls his eyes and makes a few embarrassed clicking sounds. “I guess I just decided that- that the way I was before was just better, and if I couldn’t get back to that in a double jiffy then I just had to be a lost cause. But now that I’m actually saying it aloud, I realize what a bird-brained idea that really was.”

“That sounds like an unfair insult to featherbeasts.” Eridan attempts a cautious smile, and is amazed to find Jake returning it, albeit a bit feebly.

“I mean, I don’t think I can just stop being upset about losing an entire limb...“

“Who said you had to be? If you are, fine, people can just _deal with it_. Just stop pretending like it’s about Jane or your matesprit or people keeping secrets or the robot arm or whatever, and maybe you won’t be so fucking insufferable to be around.”

“...Sound advice if ever I heard it. You’re a real sensible guy, Mr Ampora, did you know that?”

“...A fucking course I am.” Fuck, there’s no way Jake isn’t noticing his embarrassing and completely irrational blush. He needs to think of a distraction, quick. So he jerks his head back in the direction of the thing he’d noticed earlier. “By the way, your matesprit is hiding behind that bit of vegetation.”

Jake blinks at him, then spins around in a comically exaggerated fashion to squint in the direction indicated. After a moment or two there’s a sigh, and the Dirk human steps out from behind the gnarled bit of flora. “Infrared or electromagnetic?” he demands of Eridan, ignoring Jake for the moment.

“Infrared,” Eridan admits a bit reluctantly. Technically sea dwellers have both, but the electromagnetic sense was developed to work under water, and is basically useless on land even if human technology wouldn’t be playing merry hell with it anyway.

“Got it.” He nods, then turns to Jake. Maybe the other human can read his expression better, but it looks annoyingly blank from where Eridan is sitting. Which is why it’s surprising when his voice comes out so hesitant. “Sorry. I wanted to check on you, but I didn’t want to interrupt. So I decided to wait. I guess it kind of got away from me.”

Jake looks like he considers getting angry, which honestly Eridan thinks would be pretty fucking justified. But maybe he’s worn himself out on emotional theatrics, because he just makes an exasperated little sound. “Great jumping Jehoshaphat, Dirk, you don’t have to treat everything like an espionage mission.”

“Right. Sorry.” His jaw tightens slightly. “I just wasn’t sure what to do. It’s not because I don’t trust you.”

“Well, what’s that got to do with the price of a fresh mackerel? I’m sure I wasn’t trying to call your trust into question.” Jake looks baffled, and Eridan and Dirk briefly exchange looks. Eridan isn’t sure, but he has a feeling the pale human is rolling his eyes as hard as he he. “I’m just saying it’s a flaming ridiculous way to behave. And maybe a fella could get a bit jumpy if he always feels like he’s being under surveillance... you know?”

“Sure.” Dirk raises his eyebrows slightly, then looks away with a small shrug. “Anyway, as shocked as I’m sure we both are by this, it’s not like I disagree with anything this idiot just said.” Eridan makes a face and a rude gesture at Dirk from behind Jake’s back. “And for the record, I’m glad you managed to figure things out. I knew you would eventually.”

“You did?”

“What, are you calling this face a liar?” If it’s possible to get more deadpan, Dirk just did. “Anyway... I believe in you.”

Something seems to pass between the two humans that Eridan isn’t privy to, but well, that basically describes most of his life at this point. Why even bother getting upset? And it’s annoyingly hard to disapprove of anything that makes Jake smile like that.

“Well, gee. Thanks, Dirk.”

“No problem.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Now go apologize to Jane, you uncouth goddamn swine. Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you.”

“Gadzooks! You’re right!” Jake jumps to his feet, and then almost overbalances before Eridan grabs the back of his shirt to steady him. He really needs to work on his balance.

“How the fuck did you even survive until maturity?” he gripes, letting go once Jake looks like he’s found his feet. “What with having _no_ natural advantages at all, is what I mean.”

Jake just laughs and gives him another rough slap on the shoulder, hard enough to make his teeth click together. “I’m really bloody grateful for your help, Eridan. I won’t forget about this, mark my word. Now do excuse me, I have to go apologize to a lady.”

They leave, Dirk with a brief backward glance and an eyebrow raised to something approaching a question, but not quite high enough to be a challenge. Eridan stays where he sits, feeling simultaneously flustered and exhilarated about the whole damn exchange, but not entirely sure why. It just feels, somehow, like things have changed. And also, maybe, like there’s something really obvious that he’s missing. He can’t put a flipper on it right now, but it’s definitely related somehow to something he was thinking about only a little while ago. If only he could figure out what.

 

* * *

 

At first he thinks that he’s on the asteroid, eating a tense meal of the ever dwindling rations left by previous inhabitants. But as he reaches out to receive the tightly pressed cylinder of dry protein and the small pack of yet inactive water crystals, someone instead hands him a bowl. It’s made of some strangely iridescent material - some sort of carved lusus shell he realizes, nearly dropping it in delayed shock.

Around the rim, someone has carved a pattern of small leaves. The slew of meat and fungi inside is so hot it’s steaming, and it smells delicious.

Looking up, there are four other figures sitting around the fire with him. There are others out in the surrounding darkness, but all of them are indistinct.

The one who handed him the bowl is shining like a beacon, casting dancing shadows all over the smoky cave ceiling far above. Beneath the almost blinding light he manages to catch a kindly smile, and a hint of features that remind him of someone he... Kanaya?

“Welcome back, dear.” No, not Kanaya. The voice is older.

“Finally got through! I knew the humans would be useful.” This one seems old and young all at once, as if she has no fixed point in time. Her hair almost engulfs her wiry frame where she sits, and there are words in Alternian scrawled all over her skin, shifting like living things when she moves.

“It might still be two late.” This figure is just a suggestion of contours, as if he’s not entirely there. His voice sounds like an echo, a sigh. A familiar blue and red glow surrounds him.

The last figure is startlingly normal by comparison. An ordinary adult troll, only a little bit taller than Karkat, with a tattered grey cloak draped around his angular shoulders. But it’s only when he sees him that Karkat begins to tremble, the bowl slipping from his fingers and landing with a clatter on the cave floor. He feels his skin go clammy and cold, his lips numb and uncooperative as he forces himself to speak.

“Please no. I can’t deal with this. Not again. Please. I’m fucking begging you.”

He regards Karkat solemnly, even perhaps sorrowfully, but there is no mercy to be had in his expression. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he sounds like he means it. For all the good that does. “If there was another way... But we need you. Your people needs you. It can’t go on like this.”

The shining one sighs, shaking her head slightly. “Kanny, the drama isn’t helping. You’re scaring the poor thing half to death.” She offers Karkat another barely visible smile as her companion stifles a plaintive sigh. “He really does mean well. There’s just so much he was never able to do, so many he never managed to help, and it hurts him so.”

“You’ve been out of reach for so long... really scared us!” A fanged, leonine smile between lips still stained faintly with blood. She shapes her words like someone who has half forgotten how to talk to anyone but herself. “Now that you’re here again... not much time.”

“And he’s right. We need you. There’s no one else.” The female figures glare at the diffuse one, but for a being made merely of highlights and shadows, he manages a pretty passable dismissive shrug.

“She’s right, too. This happened because I failed.” It’s a simple admission, free of self-pity. The bright red eyes meet Karkat’s own, and there’s a hint of a rueful smile on his lips. “And in the end... well, I suppose it will be your choice. But there are things that we need to show you.” He nods toward the shining one, who offers Karkat her radiant hand. “Please.”

It’s every bit as much of a plea as Karkats own words, and impossible to defend himself against. He wonders if could just get up, turn his back on them and walk away. Somewhere, there must be a way out of here, right? But they’re watching him in unflinching silence, and Karkat thinks back to the things he’s seen. Aradia cradled by the bloody, broken carcass of her lusus. Sollux’ body fused with the asteroid guidance system, the timer ticking down too fast. Tavros methodically rigging his four wheel device with explosives. Nepeta’s body hitting the wall with a sickening crack. The spreading pool of blood around Kanaya, soaking into his clothes, all over his hands as he tried fruitlessly to stem the flow. Terezi kneeling in the court block, grinning. Vriska dropping the laughsassin’s body to the floor, her hands trembling. Gamzee leaning closer, his hands slowly tightening around Karkat’s throat. Eridan’s voice breaking as he pulled the trigger. Feferi snarling and covered in black blood.

Looking down at the grey symbol on his own shirt, he thinks: This has to end somewhere. If I don’t do it, who else is there?

He takes the offered hand, his body tensing for what he knows will follow. The murmur of waves, the stench of sickness and stagnant water, the chafing heaviness of chains weighing his body down. Hands on his skin, the crisp rustle of silk, a mind as empty and cold as the sea. A small voice whispering _get it out get it out get it out_ , but never loudly enough.

“I’m sorry, my child. I’m trying to hold it in.”

Another hand grasps his free one, small and hard as old wood. He hears the sound of wind roaming through caves, watches the acid rain trickle from above and carve little rivulets and pools in the cave floor. His fingertips ache, raw and bloody. The solid silence of empty years settles upon him, and he knows that loneliness makes the sound of choked sobs echoing against stone.

“Over soon. Promise.”

A shadow shifts, and the only sensation that joins the chorus this time is one prolonged, never ending scream. It is voiceless anguish and thousands of years passing in the form of one thought, one emotion, one unchanging note.

“Sorry. Can’t help it. Hurts. Sorry.”

And then finally the familiar stench of burning flesh, the excruciating pain in his wrists, but deadlier still is the quick ebbing of his blood, his senses, his mind, everything seeping away through the wound in his side. It is at once merciful and terrifying, a relief and a terrible regret. He wants the pain to end, he wants it to be over, he wants the world to just _let go_. But he has so much left to say.

The words fill him, the words at the end of all words, the things left unsaid and undone, a world largely left unchanged and aching. Every tongue silenced with his own, every body broken, every dream destroyed. It’s too much for one person to bear, let alone to hold onto and remember, to make sense of as it rises like an unstoppable tide in his mind. The shadowy figures in the cave close in, their eyes bright, their voices joining the chorus. There are gentle hands on his face, soothing words, but he cannot hear them through the waves, the silence, the scream, the anger. He cannot hear them through his own wretched sobbing.

Still, somehow, something is left behind as sleep finally surrenders him like a prisoner, and he breaks the surface of the Sopor Slime as if he’s clawing his way out of his grave.

_You will know what to do. TRUST THEM. Find the words. SET ME FREE. The Green Sun. JUSTICE. You are not alone, even in dreaming._

 

* * *

 

Once they get one of those cocoon things dragged into the house, Karkat goes there to sleep instead. It’s probably for the best for both of them, what with his recurring nightmare issues, and Karkat complaining about restless sleep and backache in the morning. Anyway, it’s not like Dave sees any reason why they should have to share a bed. They’re getting to know each other just fine in the waking hours, and until they actually figure out how to relate to each other like normal people, this wedding is nothing but a political sham anyway.

He tells himself all these things, and still it’s hard to get to sleep. It’s quite frankly preposterous. Sure, he’s slept next to his friends and family members a lot during missions, but in between he’s always had a separate bed and room like any goddamn healthy, growing guy ought to. There’s no reason for _this_ bed to feel so damn huge and uninviting just because Karkat is not in it. As for somehow feeling colder now than before they got the heat working inside... yeah, he’s calling bullshit on that. What kind of soppy bullshit tropes are in charge of this, that’s what he’d like to know.

It’s the third night in a row he’s ended up twisting and turning for an hour or so, and when he finally manages to start drifting off, the relief only barely manages to outweigh a thoroughly miffed feeling. This is absurd, and he’s not standing for it.

As a soft noise by the door startles him from the barely tangible cloud of sleep he’s managed to conjure, dispersing it like so much mist in sunlight, his first reaction is to scramble urgently for a weapon, hastily turning on the bedside lamp. The second, once he’s tried and failed to detect any danger, is an exhausted groan. He flops back onto the mattress, staring wide-awake up into the ceiling, and knowing it will probably be another hour now. “I hope you’ve got a damn good explanation for waking me up,” he tells the indistinct shape in the doorway. “I mean shit, not to be dramatic or anything, but I don’t actually want to have to kill you. If nothing else, it’ll probably be considered pretty uncool, politically speaking.”

“Well, fuck me, I didn’t know this room in my own damn hive is only available by reservation. Please kindly direct me to the appropriate manner of communication, and I will make sure to grovel in a suitably revolting display of pantswetting humiliation next time around.”

Dave winces, rubbing his hands over his face. “The appropriate manner of communication,” he says, his words coming out slightly muffled, “is what we humans call a fucking indoor voice. You ever heard of it?”

There’s the quick intake or breath that usually precedes a rise in either pitch, volume or both. Dave considers if clapping his hands over his ears would be too undignified or not. Then Karkat exhales again, a small whistling sound as if someone just gave him a swift uppercut in the stomach. “Sorry,” he mutters, at least somewhat quieter. Soft footfalls brush across the floor, and then he’s suddenly standing by the bed. In the soft, yellowish lamplight, his normally already messy hair looks damp, forming a spiky halo around his head. His shirt clings slightly to his skin.

He’s shaking.

Dave sits up, concern chasing irritation away. “Shit, are you alright? What happened?” His eyes once more dart to the bedside table where he knows Dirk left him a gun, ‘just in case’.

Karkat just shakes his head, lifting the blanket in both hands and giving Dave a beseeching look. When he nods, the troll crawls into the bed next to him and pulls the blanket up all the way to his nubby horns. “I had a nightmare.” His voice is back at the usual volume, but at least the blanket muffled it somewhat.

“...Wait, I thought that was literally the whole point to why you sleep submerged in fucking slime baths. Isn’t it supposed to keep nightmares away, or is it actually some kind of culturally significant skincare routine? Was something lost in translation there? Is it mostly for slime wrestling slumber parties?”

“Oh my sweet mother grub, shut the fuck up.” Karkat peeks over the edge of the blanket with one baleful, feebly glowing eye. “It’s supposed to do that, but it only works properly if you receive the same dosage every night, like any other fucking medication in the entire universe. If you end up skipping a few nights because some numbsponged alien customs, for example, it’s possible to still have bad dreams even when you’re in your recuperacoon. And _then_ it’s really fucking hard to wake up from your dreams because you’re literally submerged in a powerful soporific.”

He once again disappears almost completely under the blanket, and Dave can actually feel him shivering now. He bites his lip, then nods for no ones benefit except his own, carefully placing his arm across Karkat’s waist. “Okay. Do you want to stay here for the rest of the night?”

No reply, but a jerky movement that is probably a nod. After a moment or two, Karkat wriggles a bit closer, one hand closing around the front of Dave’s shirt in a vice grip.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

This time he’s definitely shaking his head, and a more pronounced tremor runs through his body. “Yeah, thought not. Just thought I’d offer.” Without really thinking about it, he starts running his fingers through Karkat’s hair, the way Rose used to when he had nightmares as a kid. “Okay, let’s talk about something else then. Take your mind off it.”

Karkat shifts a bit, his shoulders slowly starting to relax. “Like what?”

Dave grimaces unseen at the ceiling, resigning himself to his fate. “The book you’re reading... what was it? ‘Pale hands, flushed cheeks’? Why don’t you tell me about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I struggled with writing Eridan’s perspective bc I’m writing them as a bit older and after some Character Development, but I still want them to be recognizable as themselves. This is obviously a bit harder with more minor characters, but I hope I managed to pull through. Also obviously I don’t write out most of his accent, because that would get really obnoxious really fast, but I left in the supplementing “of” with “a” a couple of times because that a bit less disruptive? At least I hope so :P


	16. Linguistics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erotic linguistics. That’s all there really is to say on the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating tags to cover these shenanigans. NSFW ahead.

“Having stayed well hidden as the scorching rays of the sun ravaged the- the earth, Garrys awaited her kismesis. While she watched-“

Kanaya looks up at the sound of Rose’s quiet murmur, finding herself genuinely impressed. She can only have had the foresight to start studying Alternian for maybe a quarter of a sweep at most, and Kanaya would guess that it has been far less than that, yet her pronunciation is honestly remarkable. Certainly she struggles with certain sounds, ones that Kanaya would venture that the human’s language simply lacks, but she’s still quite advanced for a novice.

Rose of course notices her attention, as she notices most things, and looks up with a faint smile. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”

Kanaya shakes her head, even if it’s not strictly true. She had been taking a bit of a nap. Since they’ve all recently come together during the early mornings and late evenings, catching some sleep during noontime as well as night has become part of their daily patterns. But just like the humans, Kanaya has always found it difficult to properly rest while the sun is up, and her sleep had been shallow and fitful. On top of that, she finds that the incessant sound of moving water close by make her restless for some reason. Really, she’s happy for a distraction.

Rose tilts her head, her look suggesting she has seen through Kanaya’s little white lie, but she doesn’t call her on it. “At any rate, I didn’t mean to expose you to me butchering your language in such a fashion. It is quite beautiful and complex, and deserves a better treatment than what I can only call my hamfisted attempts to jam our blunt human grunts into the complex angular structures of your Alternian syllables.”

Kanaya can tell that she’s exaggerating her humility somewhat, but there is still a hint of delicate hesitation in her expression. She has already noticed that running paradoxically parallel to Rose’s undeniable narcissistic streak, is a tendency for unexpectedly harsh self-scrutiny and criticism. “Not at all. I was honestly about to remark that you’re doing exceedingly well, considering you must’ve had quite a short time available to study and enhance your skill. You rather put us to shame - I know my own attempts have been terribly feeble by comparison.”

Rose shrugs, but her smile widens slightly. “I’ve always had an ear for languages, and enjoy studying them at my leisure. Alternian has offered me a pleasant challenge so far.” She tilts her head a bit, and Kanaya can tell from the slight pursing of her lips that this part of the exchange will be more playful. “But come now, I won’t actually perish if fed anything but a steady diet of outright flattery. If you’ve got any criticism for me, please let me hear it. How else am I supposed to improve, hm?”

Kanaya worries her lip slightly, because despite Rose’s teasing tone she would like to come up with something constructive to say. However, she’s not sure how the most obvious appraisal will be received. “I would not exactly call it a critique as such, that implies that I think you were doing something wrong - which isn’t entirely accurate. It’s more like... an observation.”

“Oh dear. If you’re taking such pains to preserve my poor ego, perhaps I should be worried.”

“Yes, I am clearly angling to verbally ruin you, and escort you without delay to the nearest school feeding facility. Alas, you have rumbled my attempt to completely wreck your human shit.” Rose laughs at what Kanaya thinks was a fairly passable attempt at their strange, almost ritualistic insincerity. It’s... encouraging. “But in all seriousness, I think what mostly stands out about your pronunciation is that it comes across as rather, well, flat.”

“Flat?” Rose tilts her head thoughtfully. “Are you perhaps referring to the lack of all those little auxiliary sounds - the clicks and whirring and so on?”

“Yes, that’s indeed what I mean. Vocalizemphasis - or vox for short, if you’re actually speaking about it. Generally we don’t. It is just a thing we do naturally but mostly do not acknowledge.” She’s not sure how to explain the complicated relationship troll culture has with displays of emotion, many of which are both central to their societal structures and yet curiously subject to scorn or outright denial. It’s a thorny subject, and she decides to leave it be for now. Let’s stick to the semantics and the purely technical side of things. “I would guess that humans aren’t actually capable of those?”

“I’m afraid not. At least not while speaking at the same time - and probably not with the same sort of nuance.” Rose trails her fingers absently over the cover of the book which she is still holding, eyes bright with interest. “So I was right to assume that those serve as some sort of emotional intensifiers?”

“Yes. I did listen in a bit to a few of you talking without my translation tick activated, and it seemed to me like humans modulate the tone and pitch of their actual words to express different emotions, is that correct?”

Rose possesses such animation when speaking of something that interests her, even if it’s somehow expressed through relatively small gestures and expressions. It’s as if she is always restraining some part of herself, the intensity of which would rip through the flimsy world around her if she were to ever unleash it, so she makes do with letting little flashes of it show here and there. Kanaya catches herself half expecting objects to rattle off the furniture around her, or at least randomly levitate the way they do around Aradia when she’s excited.

It had been like that almost two weeks ago, when they first made their way to their new hive - only more so. It had been difficult, before that point, not to compare her attraction to Rose to her previous flushed feelings for Vriska. It’s as if being immune to the rays of the Alternian sun has caused her to gravitate to anything that might actually burn her. But on that night, she had known that her previous inclinations were positively pale - both figuratively and literally - compared to what’s happening to her now.

It really is as though a new celestial body has appeared in the sky, much more blinding than anything she has seen before. But warmer, too. That really ought to be more concerning to her, and yet...

Rose is looking at her in anticipation. Kanaya feels a flush creep across her cheeks, and she clears her throat. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said that’s not just correct, but very succinctly put,” Rose repeats, eyebrows slightly raised.

Kanaya is aware of the way the heat still lingers on her skin, but attempts to ignore it. “Well, as you have probably already surmised, that- that wouldn’t work very well with Alternian. You’d risk changing the entire meaning of the words. You can hold out certain sounds for effect, at most, but usually that is done to be able to fit more vox into one syllable. Vriska is pretty notorious when it comes to doing that.”

Rose nods thoughtfully. “And you can also use vox to express a specific feeling, without needing to accompany it with words, correct? Thought so. Which most of the time has no proper translation to specific human words or sounds, and therefore is interpreted by our brains as more of a tone, or even just a vague feeling.”

“That would make sense, yes. While your more flexible speech patterns are interpreted as vox to us, even though you’re not actually capable of it. Which is why it was a bit jarring to hear you actually speak Alternian, I believe. Without the interference of the translation, of course your words would sound less...” Shes not sure what word to use, so she merely waves one hand vaguely.

“Emotive?” Rose suggests. Then she sighs, leaning back against the padded side of the lounging chaise she’s perched on. “That’s a bit of a shame. I’m afraid I couldn’t find much information on the subject in my study materials, and even if I did, I suspect that my ability to master such subtleties will be limited.” She glances down at her book again. “I’m guessing that since it’s largely intuitive, it doesn’t really come across in text either?”

Kanaya gets up from the pile of pillows she’d been dozing on, crossing the room to where Rose is seated by one of the large windows. She had requested those for her own quarters, and Feferi had graciously accommodated her. It had been decided that arranging a hive for all of them close to the border would be the most efficient way to go about things, and it really took very little time for the assigned robots to accomplish a suitable structure. Right outside the window, water glitters in the bright noonday sun. It does so outside all of the windows, apart from the lower ones, owing to the fact that _those_ are under the surface of the water. This is because the hive is situated in the middle of a handy salt water lake which is continuously fed by the shifting tides. It’s low tide now, meaning the lake is cut off from the sea by a narrow rocky ledge spanning between the much steeper cliffs on either side.

From this window it is also possible to see across the border, and if one squints a bit, to make out Karkat’s and Dave’s dwelling on top of the nearest peak. No one had said anything, but Kanaya knows it had been arranged that way for a reason, and she’s grateful.

Sitting down just behind Rose and arranging herself so that she can glance over her shoulder, she drapes one arm loosely around her waist, and uses the other to open the book once more. “If you don’t mind...?”

“Not at all.” Rose leans back against her, strands of her soft hair tickling Kanaya’s neck as their cheeks don’t quite brush together, yet come close enough that Kanaya can feel the heat radiating off her skin. Her small frame feels so delicate cradled close to her like this, and yet it’s as if she can sense the coiled potential within her slight limbs, power compressed and perfectly tempered. Her own vascular system performs a not entirely unpleasant jolting maneuver as Rose presses closer, and her breathing stutters and then slows in response to the resulting tension. She notices, too, how small bumps appear across Rose’s skin, and the fine hairs on her lower arms rise up slightly. Some sort of mammalian reflexive response, no doubt, which she cannot guess the purpose of.

Trying not to allow herself to be distracted, Kanaya quickly turns the pages with fingers that suddenly seem a bit too clumsy for her liking. She scans the text until she finds a likely passage, and then carefully pins down the spread with the tips of her fingers. “In prose, the words are rather supposed to carry the emotional narrative on their own, and indicating any sort of vox is usually considered terribly gauche. But in dialogue...” With her nail, she taps a small line of colored dots and dashes in between the lines of text to bring them to Rose’s attention. “Describing every variation with words would be tedious and would probably sound rather clunky, so it’s not uncommon for authors to include some pointers. It’s not as exact as actual letters, and there are things like... dialects, personal preferences, highblood or lowblood affectations, all of which cause different trolls to have very individual interpretations. But these ones translate to something like...”

She tries to carefully ennunciate the way the initial soft whir blends into a scraping hiss, thinking too late that maybe she should have picked a less loaded piece of dialogue. Rose shivers next to her, her breathing noticeably picking up in counterpoint to Kanaya’s almost painfully slow breaths. Warmer blood, she thinks a bit dizzily. She reacts differently to adrenaline, just like a warmer hued troll would.

“Come and claim what you presume is yours, then,” Rose reads in somewhat less elegant Alternian than before, the words that were meant to accompany the vox. Is it just Kanaya, or does her skin feel slightly warmer?

Rose slides one hand around the cover of the book, allowing it to sink carelessly into her lap as she splays her fingers against the back of Kanaya’s hand. She curls them slightly so that her beautifully manicured, bright golden nails dig into Kanaya’s wrist for a moment, then slowly trails them up along the angle of her arm. She turns her body along with the movement, until their foreheads rest together, and uses the hand now cradling Kanaya’s neck to gently push her backwards onto the sloped surface of the chaise.

It’s such a fluid, natural progression of events that Kanaya finds her own reactions delayed, but she’s not going to let the human solely claim the initiative in this exchange. With her arm still curled around Rose’s waist, she pulls her with her even as she folds, easily lifting up the other girl’s much lighter frame in order to slide her legs beneath her, so that when she sets her down once more she ends up perched on her lap. Rose lets out a startled little sound, which is followed by a low laugh, rich and warm, as she shifts to get more comfortable. Her dress slides up in the process, unveiling white, powerful limbs. Kanaya experimentally runs her fingers across the soft skin now exposed, fascinated to find her fingertips catching slightly on a light dusting of stubble. For some reason she cannot quite fathom, it appears that the hair that used to grow there has been removed. How curious.

They’ve had a few moments of tentative intimacy after the wedding, but Rose has been clearly conscious of Kanaya’s wish to explore their potential relationship more slowly, and hasn’t pushed at all until now. And this time around, Kanaya has to admit, she’d been trying to signal very hard that she wouldn’t mind a certain amount of push. If Rose hadn’t taken her up on it, she might’ve considered pushing a bit herself.

Rose sighs, the sound hitching slightly as Kanaya’s hands dive underneath her skirt and continue up the back of her thighs. She curves her spine slightly like a cat, rolling her hips up against Kanaya’s hands, and then closes the already tense and aching distance between their lips. Kanaya is surprised by how much intensity Rose puts into the kiss, and just as surprised by the ferocity with which she returns it. Rose presses her body against Kanaya’s with some urgency, rolling her hips downward this time, and then lets out a low moan that is almost completely muffled by the kiss.

When they break apart they are both breathless, and Rose’s lips are parted as she half pants, half laughs for breath, eyes intent and seeming to scorch whatever they land on. There is a shockingly bright red smear on Rose’s lower lip, and a taste that is both familiar and alien in Kanaya’s mouth. Human blood is heavy and salty on the palate, and that color... no, best not to think about it. Not now.

Rose doesn’t appear bothered by being nicked by Kanaya’s fangs. She licks the blood from her lower lip and smiles, before leaning in and trailing lingering kisses and hot, wet breath along the upper edge of Kanaya’s ear, across the slightly ridged skin behind it, and then across the smoother, more sensitive skin of her neck. Every few seconds, she stops to nip experimentally with her teeth, making small murmuring sounds against the worried skin. Kanaya finds herself shockingly unbothered by the little sighs and whimpering sounds that pass her own lips as this progresses.

She does however tense slightly as Rose’s lips reach her chest, and Rose’s fingers start to undo the lacing of her dress. The human halts, looking up quizzically, her face slightly flushed and her mouth half open and soft.

“Too much?” she enquirers, her voice nonetheless smooth and seemingly in control, even if it is chased by ragged breaths.

Kanaya half expects that she’ll say yes, so she’s taken aback when a very urgent, “No!” comes tumbling out instead. She flushes, offering Rose a tentative smile to somewhat take the edge off the desperation in her statement. “No. Please, continue.”

Rose smiles, just a little triumphant, and resumes what she’s doing. Her hands are just as skilled and quick as Kanaya remembers, chasing fabric away with the same ease as she draws a gun. Kanaya isn’t quite sure what it says about her that this is the connection she makes, nor is she entirely sure that she wants to. Once done with Kanaya’s clothes, she leans back and quickly pulls her own dress over her head, discarding it on the floor. The silky, sliplike thing which appears to be some sort of chest protector follows suit, and now they are both exposed save for their underwear.

Kanaya is a bit too aware of the fluid already slowly soaking into hers, staining the off-white fabric a pale green. Rose’s on the other hand are black, so she can’t see if she’s having a similar effect - if indeed that’s something that happens to humans. She had been just a bit too bashful to do any such research, even if it would’ve come in rather handy right about now.

Rose dips back down and resumes her exploration, painting a trail down the middle of Kanaya’s chest plate with the tip of her tongue, her nails painting whimsical trails on each side. It’s not a particularly sensitive part of her body, of course, what with all the dense musculature and subcutaneous chitin plates there to protect the main vascular system. Even so, it’s a pleasant sensation, and the rapt attention is gratifying in itself. She leans back, closing her eyes and sighing, only to have them fly open with a jolt as Rose’s lips suddenly brush along the edge of her left grub scar.

“Oh!” Without any conscious input, she finds one hand tangled in Rose’s hair, and the human smirks at her.

“Was that an ‘oh please go on’ or an ‘oh please stop’? Just so I’m clear.”

“I- It just surprised me.” She swallows, trying to relax once more. “Go on, but... carefully? The actual scars aren’t very sensitive, but the skin around...”

Rose nods thoughtfully, leaning in and exhaling softly where her lips just were, causing Kanaya to shiver. Then, still not breaking eye contact, she runs her tongue in a burning trail around the scar, and makes a soft little noise of satisfaction as Kanaya responds with a chattering whine. “Good?”

“Yes. Good.” Kanaya watches her shift to the other side, lets out a fluttering sigh when she repeats the gesture, and has to bite down a protest when she allows her mouth to wander lower down. For a moment it tickles a bit, and she squirms, but then Rose’s mouth is right above her nook area and she freezes instead. The fabric of her underthings is very thin, not to mention completely soaked through, meaning she can feel every warm breath coming from Rose’s parted lips. The human meets her gaze in silent inquiry, and Kanaya doesn’t trust her voice right now, so she simply nods instead.

She had expected her to just remove the underwear, but instead she leans in and presses her tongue against the sodden fabric, moving it in a slow, deliberate circle. Unsurprisingly, Kanaya finds herself already slightly extended underneath, and the movement somehow manages to hit every stalk, causing them to uncurl further as she sinks down against the chaise with a choked moan.

“Oh, there they are,” Rose murmurs, utterly unfazed as the textile fails to entirely hold Kanaya’s rapidly extending bulge. Kanaya is about to respond, something slightly acerbic perhaps, but Rose takes one of the stalks into her mouth and sucks gently on it, and her words unravel into utter, breathless nonsense. She has just enough presence of mind to lift her hips slightly as Rose finally tugs at her underwear, and that’s about it.

“You know, the descriptions I read definitely don’t do it justice,” Rose muses, voice low and pleased. “Certainly more pleasantly arranged than a lot of species I could mention. Kind of like an anemone, isn’t it?”

It’s not exactly an unflattering remark, but it still causes Kanaya to blush, not sure how to deal with this casual comparison. “A bit, I suppose. I cannot say I’ve actually thought of it.”

“No?” Rose chuckles softly, running one finger gently along the edge of Kanaya’s nook, causing her to shiver. “How remiss of you. Is there no poetry in your soul?” The stalks reach reflexively toward the warmth of her mouth, and this time she takes in two, pinning them between the roof of her mouth and her tongue. Kanaya keens, the hand that is still tangled in Rose’s hair clenching.

“And they’re only external when in use, right?” Rose inquires once her mouth is free again, not quite managing to sound as casual as she’d probably like, but apparently still overtaken by curiosity.

“Yes?” Kanaya’s head is swimming, and she wants Rose’s hands and mouth back on her right away, but she doesn’t quite have it in her to say as much. “It would be impractical to have then out there all the time. Are- Are yours any different?”

Rose lets out a small laugh, a teasing puff of warm air that is thankfully followed by probing fingers once more. “My parts are almost exclusively internal, with some important exceptions. But enough about them for now. I’d like to focus on you.” She spreads Kanaya’s legs a bit further with an authoritative hand, leaning closer. “Oh, and these are the things with the funny name, right?”

Kanaya is about to ask what she means, but only manages to gasp and shiver as Rose decides to show what she means. “Ah, that’s- y- you mean shame globes? Though boys tend to use that expression more than girls, since they’re less pronounced on us.” She wrinkles her nose a bit. “I’ve always found it to be a bit of a misnomer, personally.”

“Mm, I have to agree,” Rose murmurs. “I like them already.” And then her tongue follows her fingers, and Kanaya has to cover her mouth with her hand to keep her startled yelp from becoming a scream. It’s almost too much, almost overwhelms her completely, especially as Rose keeps stroking her bulge, wicked fingers playing with her stalks. It’s almost too much, and at the same time only barely enough, as she squirms desperately against Rose for more pressure, more friction, _more_. It’s nothing close to doing this to herself, so much more direct, and she’d never imagined how quickly her inhibitions could unravel under someone else’s touch.

It really isn’t enough. Fuck. “I- please, if you could-“ This is so embarrassing. “-inside me?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Rose replies with a satisfied smile. She shifts her weight to her other arm, briefly sticks two of her fingers inside her mouth - to wet them, Kanaya realizes. A thoughtful gesture, although probably not necessary. Maybe that’s why the little pleased murmur as Rose uses the tips of her fingers to spread the entrance of Kanaya’s nook a bit more, before inserting first one and then the other finger.

“Oh,” Kanaya breathes, digging the nails of her free hand into the padding of the chaise. And then again, “ _Oh_ ,” as Rose’s tongue returns, painting little patterns right above the opening, at the base of her stalks. Rose’s fingers are small and delicate, but she spreads them out and twists them around, roaming around and finding every single swelling pleasure node with almost unsettling precision.

She really, really isn’t going to last long under this kind of onslaught. Which means... “We don’t...” She interrupts herself with a soft, whining whir as Rose’s motions still, probably to allow her to speak unhindered. “I’m not sure if we even have a pail.”

“Is it strictly necessary?” Rose demands. “If it’s not for procreative purposes, I mean?”

“Well, no, but I’ll ruin the upholstery,” Kanaya says feebly, rapidly approaching the point where she won’t even care as long as Rose goes back to doing what she was doing. But Rose nods thoughtfully, pulls her fingers free, and tries to hold back a smile as Kanaya lets out another plaintive noise.

“I’ll be back in just a moment.” She disappears into the ablution block, only to return only a moment later with a fresh towel. Kanaya watches in dazed confusion as she lays it down on the floor close to the chaise, then gestures for her to scoot closer to the edge. “There. It should be fine if it ends up on the floor, right?”

Kanaya nods and positions her hips as directed, prepared to agree with anything if it means that Rose puts her fingers back where they belong. Thankfully, that’s exactly what she does, returning to the task at hand with renewed focus and enthusiasm. Kanaya’s legs, now propped against the floor to support her hips, tremble and almost buckle in response. It takes every shred of self control she had to not instinctively wrap them around Rose’s shoulders and press herself closer. Instead she merely twitches her hips encouragingly toward her, begging for something she can’t quite articulate. Rose obliges by inserting another finger and splaying them wide.

This time, there’s no way to quieten herself at all as she finally unravels, feeling herself contract and then finally release the almost painful amount of pent-up fluid. Her voice tears like fabric with the force of the shout, pleasure riding on her voice and in the tense line of her body, pulsing out of her with every new wave of released genetic material. For a moment the world has to capitulate under the force of it, reducing her entire awareness to the shuddering jolts of her body, her hands scrabbling and grasping at everything she can reach, and Rose’s fingers still moving inside her, drawing out the exquisite agony of the moment.

Then it slowly seeps back, a little at the time. She looks down, her mind wiped clean and filled with lightness, to see Rose’s pale skin and hair erratically stained in green all over, glistening with a faint sheen of sweat wherever it isn’t.

She giggles.

Rose grins, shifting her weight from her knees to her feet. “I think we might need a bigger towel,” she remarks, and Kanaya has to cover her mouth once again, this time to muffle a snort of undignified laughter. She’s dangerously perfect, this strange alien mammal with her pale pink skin - well, somewhere under all that mess - and her intense violet eyes. But it doesn’t worry her at all right now.

Rose makes a movement as if to stand up, but Kanaya slides forward onto her knees, until she’s perched across Rose’s lap instead. Still laughing, she pushes her backwards onto the floor. Rose goes over with a small gasp, rather gratifying really, and then obediently lifts her hips as Kanaya pointedly hooks a finger into the lacy band of her underwear.

Well, that certainly _is_ different. Kanaya curiously brushes her fingers through the soft downs of hair, causing Rose to squirm a little bit. “Tickles,” se murmurs, but she doesn’t actually seem too displeased.

“You said most of it is internal, yes?” Kanaya asks, wanting to show that she at least was paying attention, even if she obviously hasn’t done the extensive amount of research which Rose has clearly hinted at. She explores the soft pink folds with the tips of her fingers, pleased to indeed find moisture there and following it to its source. “So this is sort of like a nook, then?”

“For our intents and purposes, certainly,” Rose murmurs, lifting and spreading her legs unasked, possibly to give a better view. Her hips twitch slightly. “Its one of the two most important parts of the equation. Care to guess what the other one is?”

In response, Kanaya simply lets her fingers roam across the slick, warm area, carefully watching Rose’s face. She’d said something about an exception, so-

“Ah!” Rose suddenly presses her eyes shut, head dropping backwards to expose the arc of her neck. She looks very appealing like that.

“I think I found it,” Kanaya suggests, pressing her finger a bit more firmly against the slightly swollen protrusion. Rose shivers, and then squirms slightly.

“Careful,” she breathes. “It’s very sensitive.”

Kanaya nods her understanding, drawing a more cautious circle around the raised area before sliding her fingers back to the wet opening below. Rose lets out a fluttering breath and closes her eyes, and therefore quite misses as Kanaya uses her other hand to rub her own nook area, playing with her half retracted stalks to draw them out again. They’re a bit more prehensile and easily maneuvered when she’s no longer so worked up. So as she leans forward, its quite easy to allow a majority of them them to slip inside Rose.

The human’s eyes fly open and widen as Kanaya presses her body closer to hers, pinning her to the ground with her weight. Then she makes a sound that is more a growl than a moan, snaking her arms around Kanaya’s waist and pulling her closer still, pressing their lips together in a needy kiss, all aggressive tongue and nipping teeth. Her legs clamp around Kanaya’s hips only a moment later, hips rolling and stuttering. As Kanaya moves the rest of the stalks forward to rub against that intriguing little protrusion, Rose returns the favor by managing to puncture Kanaya’s lip.

“Sorry,” she breathes, a speck of green blood making a sharp contrast against the paler green stains all over her face. It makes Kanaya wonder if she has red human blood marking her own neck in turn.

“Don’t worry about it,” she suggests graciously, experimentally moving and spreading out inside Rose to see what gets a reaction. The human squirms and moans softly, her voice climbing slightly with every new movement. Kanaya experiments with this for a while, then attempts to match the rolling surges of Rose’s hips somehow, and is rewarded with a greater urgency to her movements, and Rose tightening the grasp of her legs around her even further. It’s really very pleasant, even if her bulge is slightly numbed by her previous release, and she would very much like to try this again later.

“Almost, I- _there_...” Rose’s whole spine arches this time, her nails digging into Kanaya’s back. Obediently, she tries to repeat whatever it was she did, pressing her stalks up against her own body and the slightly coarse texture she can detect there.

Rose actually whimpers this time, urgently freeing one of her hands to reach down between them. Kanaya makes room for her fingers, giving her adequate space to rub hard and fast at the now quite noticeably swollen nub, her hips moving in frantic, off-beat jolts.

It’s hard not to notice the force of the sudden contraction around her, nor the way Rose bites down on her own lip and clings to her as her life depends on it. As she shakes and thrashes her body against hers, her hand abruptly goes still, appearing to simply apply pressure instead, and there appears to be an influx of warmth around her pulsating human nook.

Then she goes limp, falling back against the floor with a shaky, contented sigh. Kanaya watches her apprehensively. “Was that...?”

Rose simply nods, apparently out of breath. She shivers as Kanaya shifts slightly, and she can sense another small contraction. It _does_ seem a bit wetter down there, but not nearly as much as she would expect.

“Are you sure?” she ventures.

Rose laughs, finally opening her eyes. “Beyond all doubt. Trust me, I would tell you if I was in any way dissatisfied. I don’t tend to suffer in silence.” She rolls her hips lazily, another happy sigh escaping her. “We’re just not as deliciously dramatic as trolls when it comes to our climax, regardless of our equipment - but especially not if we’re laid out the way I am down there. I believe you’re already somewhat familiar with how a uterus works, right? They do not require that sort of drama - as welcome as it was.”

Kanaya nods slowly. It makes sense, now that she thinks of it. The genetic material of the partner is supposed to be added to what is already there, inside, so no excessive output is necessary. What a strange, fascinating thought. “Good,” she says, somewhat embarrassed by her own hesitance. She can feel herself retracting out of Rose now that she’s no longer making a conscious effort not to. Rose responds with an almost regretful little sound as she untangles her legs from around her waist, which is rather satisfying in and of itself.

She rolls over on her back next to the human, lazily entwining her fingers with hers. They’re still slick and a little bit sticky, stained a pale green. She finds she has no idea what to say now. This wasn’t exactly planned; it was, in fact, entirely spontaneous, even perhaps a bit hasty. She can’t say she regrets it, not at all, but she finds herself unpleasantly unprepared for the aftermath. What does this mean, exactly? She realizes that from a human perspective, they’re already in a sense in as committed relationship as it’s possible to be. But from a troll perspective, she’s still not sure what this makes them. Are they matesprits now? Is that what she feels?

Realizing that Rose is looking right at her, she offers her a nervous little smile. Rose returns it, turning Kanaya’s hand around in hers and pressing a small kiss to the back of her hand. “You still don’t have to have it all figured out just yet, you know,” she says, her lips twitching in amusement as Kanaya starts in surprise. “I’m pretty good at reading faces as well as minds.”

“I didn’t think-“ Not entirely accurate. She hadn’t assumed, but perhaps wondered.

“I just wanted to clarify.” This time, Rose kisses her fingertips. “But just so you know... I don’t mind if you’re not certain. We can take our time.”

Well, that’s a relief. “Thank you,” Kanaya replies, and she means it. After that, words aren’t needed for a while.


	17. No place like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's possible that everyone can feel it now. Something is happening. All anyone can do is try to be prepared... but for what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL no doubt a lot of you are reeling from the epilogue, bc I know I sure as fuck am. In this the year of our lord 2019, we appear to be waiting for a Homestuck upd8, because we never get off this ride.
> 
> ANYWAY, I wanted to publish something for 4/13, but writing took actual time and it's technically 4/14 here now. But hey, it's still 4/13 SOMEWHERE on the planet, and AO3 lets you pick publishing date, so it still counts. Happy 4/13, y'all!

The static, bleak eyes of the stars outside the bridge window seem particularly uncaring and dull right now. Usually the little blinking names and facts that accompany them would thrill her, no matter how mundane, but right now they only serve to make the whole world seem distant and unknown. Jade slumps into a chair, sighing as the impact causes it to twirl around, which honestly says everything anyone needs to know about her mood. She’s never been any good at goodbyes, even temporary ones. Honestly, it had been so _nice_ , just spending some time together with her friends for a while. She’d never really appreciated how little time they used to have to just take it easy to enjoy each other’s company, which she supposes is because they’d always been busy working from the moment they’d met. There hadn’t exactly been an opportunity to learn what off time felt like.

Before then, she’d honestly been a bit isolated even from the rest of the family, what with the way her grandfather was always moving around. Which she had loved, of course, she hurriedly adds even if it’s only for her own benefit. Exploring new planets together, roaming the stars… her childhood had been an endless, carefree adventure in a lot of ways. Sure, a rather dangerous one, but that had never concerned her back then. She’d never felt like she was in danger, not as long as she had him to protect her. Nothing bad could happen with him watching her back.

Until it had.

Gosh, she really _is_ in a glum mood! Usually she doesn’t think much about that nowadays.

The problem is, as nice as spending time together down on Muspell had been, the awkward truth is that neither of them knows what comes next. She’d always kind of assumed that when Jake, Dave and Rose had recovered from the previous events, they would leave that planet and return to work. It would be like it used to be again, the eight of them together, going on adventures and fighting bad guys. She’d honestly been excited about it, now that the Green Sun Corporation looked like it wouldn't pose any trouble in a long while. Even though technically they were the reason she’d decided to join SKAIA in the first place, things seemed like they’d be more fun without having to deal with them. So she’d expected things to go back to the way they were, only simpler.

She’s pretty sure, too, that John had thought the same thing, and that’s why he’s been kind of out of sorts and snappish ever since they took off. He has a tendency of going into sulks when he’s frustrated, and right now, Jade doesn’t even feel like she can blame him. Because the fact of the matter is, things will never be exactly as they were before. The most likely outcome, _if_ the political situation remains stable, is that Dave and Rose have to stay where they are indefinitely. For the sake of the safety of the settlers, and also supposedly the trolls, there is no way they or their spouses can actually leave the planet at all. They’d already stretched the terms of the contract slightly by crossing the border back and forth these last two months, but presumably that was acceptable as long as both sides could keep an eye on them. That kind of leniency obviously can’t be expected if they decide to completely remove themselves from the situation they’re supposed to pacify.

Then again, if the political situation doesn’t remain stable… well, she can’t say that leaving feels right in that eventuality. But what are they supposed to do? Just deciding to retire completely seems a bit drastic, and they can’t just sit around waiting just in case things decide to go bad down there.

Or can they? Should they? Is there something they’re missing?

She sighs again, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back heavily against the padded headrest. This is bullshit.

“Please tell me you’re not sulking too, Harley. It’s like a goddamn PTA meeting full of nothing but disgruntled rich people up in here.”

She hadn’t heard him enter. Partly because he probably didn’t in fact enter, he just appeared where he wanted to be, and partly because even if he had, he wouldn’t have made a sound. What with being a holographic projection of the ship computer. She glances over her shoulder and makes a face at him, as he lounges with his arms draped over the back of the chair, slightly ruining the illusion of his presence since the soft padding doesn’t budge at all under the nonexistent pressure of his limbs. Just like his voice, his hologram’s appearance is a slightly distorted version of his human creator, as opposed to the sleek blued metal version he used to be. Dirk is pale, sure, but Hal’s skin is just straight up paper white, and there are faint red hints on the tips of his hair. That along with the spookily glowing eyes and the cyborgy red circuitry details on random patches of skin is all probably some kind of ironical joke. Like he’s making fun of looking as malevolent and creepy as possible, just to mess with everyone’s heads, that sort of thing. He’d played up the whole Dirk’s evil twin nonsense even back when he was a robot, so it would be just like him.

She should probably feel a bit offended by it, since it’s pretty close to what she actually looks like whether she wants to or not. But actually… it’s kind of nice to not be the only one in their group who looks decidedly weird and inhuman.

“No, I’m not sulking.” A beat, and she gives him a stern look. “You didn’t antagonize John, right? I really don’t want to have to deal with defusing another of his weird tantrums just because you couldn’t find something better to do.”

He rolls his eyes slightly, the glowing irises visible even through the illusion of his shades, which don’t actually have frames and just kind of hover in front of his eyes. “He’s honestly a waste of my talents. It’s like asking a virtuoso pianist to play chopsticks. Anyone can play that shit, and perfectly inanimate objects can get a rise out of John when he’s in a pissy mood. I’ve got better shit to do, and honestly? So do most non-sentient objects as well.”

“If you really believed that and actually knew when to step off, John and Jake probably wouldn't be permanently fed up with you, you know,” she points out mildly. Maybe Dirk wouldn’t have such a complicated relationship with the program he literally created either, but that whole mess is an entirely different nest of snakes, and one she has decided to stay well clear of.

Hal just pointedly ignores that, tilting his head. “So if you’re not sulking, why the dramatic sighing? Are you practicing for your star role as a tragic heroine? Are the oxygen levels not to your liking? Tell a simple ship your troubles.”

“Ugh, you’re such a smartass. I’m just feeling a bit sad, that’s all. We only headed out an hour ago, and I already miss them all!” She tilts her head back so she can meet his gaze more comfortably. “And I guess I worry that things will never be the same again. Doesn’t that worry you a little too?”

In response, he raises an eyebrow in a distinctly noncommittal manner, but she’s pretty sure that’s just to try to get a rise out of her, and that’s basically what he does instead of breathing. He’s honestly even worse than Dave and Dirk when it comes to that sort of nonsense. Pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees, she lets her gaze drift once again to the distant stars outside. They haven’t moved or changed. Of course they haven’t. You have to move rather incredibly fast for stars to appear to be moving in relation to yourself, and they’re cruising at a very leisurely clip right now. Hmm.

“I guess I’m worried about some other stuff too. The situation down there is just a little bit… fraught! And while everyone is doing their best at keeping things quiet, if something does go wrong...”

“If something goes wrong, then everyone we know are sitting right in the expected path of that particular shitstorm, and they’re all wearing their nicest white shirts,” Hal supplies helpfully. “Are there any sign that things are about to go wrong within the foreseeable future, though?”

Jade wrinkles her nose a bit and looks back at him, tapping her fingers against her leg in thought, and then starts slightly at the surprisingly loud sound of metal on metal. She still forgets from time to time. Hal probably noticed, but has the good grace not to comment, at least. “I don’t know. Honestly things seem pretty calm? The people in the towns seem to have relaxed a lot, and they don’t even seem to mind much when the trolls came with us a couple of times. Some of them even played with the kids down there! It was… nice. It feels like people are really making an effort to reach out and show willing. I think they really trust Professor Lalonde, and the wedding… it was something they could all understand and relate to somehow, I guess?”

“And what about the trolls?” he says, easily picking up on what she’s trying not to say, even when he’s not actively inside her head.

“I’m not sure,” she admits a bit reluctantly. Again, he raises an eyebrow, and she pointedly looks away. She fixes her gaze on one particular star instead, and a list of its most common names pops up next to it and starts to scroll down. One of them is Stiller, and she makes a mental note to tell Dave about it. She’ll never quite understand his penchant for centuries old trivia, but it’s kind of sweet. “I mean, I haven’t seen many of them outside of the Heiress’ group. There’s a handful who I think are advisers or politicians or something? They keep coming and going, but they don’t exactly interact with us humans. They seem distrustful, but not downright hostile.”

He walks around her, utterly silent: no footsteps, no clothes rustling, no breathing. He could absolutely fake these things if he wanted, probably so well that no one could tell the difference, but she supposes there’s no point in doing that other than to cater to the comfort of those he refers to as ‘organics’ - which always makes her smile a bit, because it makes them sound like produce. Would the Strider-Lalondes even be classified as completely organic from a food perspective, anyway? They _are_ genetically modified, after all.

This is a very silly thought.

Hal sits down on the floor in front of her, legs crossed and hands placed loosely in his lap. Making it hard for her to avoid his gaze. He picks up mannerisms like that annoyingly fast. “Something is bothering you. Tell me.”

Asking nicely, however, is not a habit she imagines he’ll ever learn. “Well, it’s hard to tell you what it is exactly, because it’s mostly a feeling… a hunch, I guess.” He nods at her to go on, and the fact that he doesn’t dismiss it or at the very least make a joke about not having feelings only confirms certain suspicions she was having before. “It just feels like something is off. Like there’s something they’re not telling us. I think there’s some kind of political thing going on beyond what we were briefed on, and they don’t want us to know about it. There’s this tension in the air, and I’m not even sure if political is the right word. It might have political consequences, but it seems more complicated than that somehow. Like… philosophy? Some kind of fundamental change, or… oh, I don’t know!”

“A paradigm shift.”

“Maybe.” She gives him a very direct look. “Hal, do you know something?”

“More than even you could possibly imagine, Harley.”

“Oh, you know what I meant! Don’t be cute with me, mister.”

He shrugs, the red glow of his eyes seeming to leave faint trails following the slight movement, even through the shades. “I would prefer not to say anything yet. I don’t subscribe to the notion of hunches or intuition, and I prefer to have all the facts assembled before I draw conclusions.” She raises an eyebrow in retaliation for him doing the same just a moment earlier, because that certainly was a lot of words he used to mean basically the same thing as her, ‘I’m not sure’. He has the decency to look away in turn. “Some of the data I gathered so far seems to indicate that it wouldn’t be unwise to keep an eye on the situation, just in case.”

“What data? Will you share it with me?”

He is quiet for a moment, carefully studying her face, and then abruptly shakes his head, causing a smeared red streak of light to linger in the air. “No. Not yet. Keeping an eye on the situation is one thing, but it would probably be just as bad to blow it out of proportion if it turns out to be nothing. And you’re still a bit too human for me to trust you not to do that.”

 _I don’t want you to worry_ , Jade translates for him in her head. He can be surprisingly sweet sometimes. And just like the rest of his family, for a given value of family. Always trying to protect people from knowing things that will hurt them, as if being kept in the dark can’t be hurtful too. But she appreciates the sentiment even so.

“And is that why we’re moving so slowly right now, Hal?” she asks shrewdly, reaching out with her foot to nudge his knee even though she knows it’ll pass right through. “You don’t want us to get too far away, just in case… right?”

He gives her his blankest possible face, which really is an answer in and of itself. “That would be illogical. Even if something were to happen, dragging out our journey is unlikely to make any difference at all. That would be some coincidence.”

“Sure thing, wise guy. I’ve got your number.”

“Which one? I am literally made of the damn things, Harley. You can’t possibly have them all.”

“I like to think that I have the ones that matter,” she says with a grin, and she thinks she can detect just the slightest lift in the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

 

* * *

 

 

The way into the house – sorry, hive – the trolls and Rose are all staying in is a sort of tube running from the lake shore to an entrance way under the surface of the water. It’s translucent and kind of gross looking, like walking through a gigantic piece of gelatinous intestine, even if it’s surprisingly sturdy underfoot. But at least the glimmering lights lining it and lighting the way through the murky underwater darkness are rather pretty, and the see-through walls mean you can watch all sorts of creatures swimming by as you walk.

That includes Feferi, who shoots past in a spray of tiny bubbles, the silk of her dress trailing behind her like brightly colored fins. Roxy supposes all those loosely draped layers are specifically designed to be easy to wear while swimming. She laughs and waves at her, and gets a shark-toothed smile and some sort of high-pitched, cheerful-sounding chittering back, before the heiress once more disappears into the dark depths. She moves hella fast underwater, and looks a lot more alien and dangerous in her own element, like she’s almost too wild and strange to get close to… though not in a bad way, Roxy thinks loyally.

There’s some sotto voce grumbling behind her, and Roxy guesses even before glancing back that it’s coming from Eridan. What’s his deal this time? Apart from generally acting salty toward Feferi _still_ , after apparently literal years of not being a thing? Talk about a guy who needs a hobby. He meets her gaze for a moment, then rolls his eyes and looks away, and this time she manages to catch the words ‘embarrassingly flippin obvious’… whatever that’s supposed to mean.

She had asked Feferi why he didn’t just swim his way into the hive too, what with being a sea dweller too – it’s not exactly like he shuts up about it ever. The princess had replied with a shrug that he wouldn't say, but she suspects that he’s just being self-conscious. He’d never swum much as a kid, apparently, because he had this bee in his bonnet about ‘keeping an eye on the land dwellers’, so he’d never gotten much practice in. And now Feferi is pretty sure that he’s just embarrassed because he’s not all that good at it, so he avoids it.

Reaching the end of the tunnel, they all file into the incredibly over-the-top antechamber, the walls covered in portraits and the furniture dripping with gold details. It’s pretty obvious that this part of the hive is considered part of the royal residence, with a sort of well leading directly from it down to the rest of Feferi’s chambers. But with Roxy staying over the night, they’ll both be heading to the upstairs common area, since every room below this point in the hive is full of water and kind of hard for anyone without gills to hang out in.

There’s a splash from the decorative pond in the middle of the room, and the sound of metal hatches opening and closing, and then Feferi steps out, casually wringing the water out of her hair. It seems to have some sort of goose feather quality where it just slides off the strands, and it kind of makes Roxy want to dunk some water over the heads of the rest of the trolls, to figure out if it’s just a sea dweller thing or not. Probably not right now, but maybe she could get Gamzee or Aradia to agree to it later. They’ve both sure got a lot of hair, and they’re more relaxed than some of the others, so they’d probably make ideal test subjects.

As they pass upstairs on a gently sloping ramp which winds its way through the center of the strangely congealed-looking building, the rest of the trolls drop off one at a time to go to their own spaces. The only ones going together are Kanaya and Rose – and if Rose thinks Roxy didn’t notice her putting her hand on the back of Kanaya’s neck as they were walking through the door, she’s definitely got another think coming.

It’s still a little bit surprising to see everyone separate like that. Somehow, with everyone living in the same building, and all of them being friends, she had expected for some of them to be roomies at least. Especially the ones that are in relationships with each other. She has certainly shared rooms with every every single one of her friends as well as her whole family, and back when Dave and Jade were a thing they’d all made sure they could always get a room together as a matter of course. It just seems so natural to want to use every precious moment together with people you like, especially when you don’t have to be doing anything except hanging out. But Feferi had explained that trolls don’t really work like that. Of course they would spend time together and hang out, but not having a clearly defined space that is just yours would be utterly unthinkable. She’d laughed and said that otherwise the walls would soon be dripping with blood, and Roxy got a distinct feeling this was one of those times when Feferi laughed but wasn’t actually joking.

The so called reclining block up top is really nice, though. The floor is soft, kind of spongy and velvety at the same time, and mounds up into different chair- and sofalike structures that you can sit on. Cushions are strewn everywhere, and low tables are affixed to the walls to allow people to eat or play games, as well as to make space for a number of their strange looking computers. Maybe she’ll have some time later to fiddle around with those some more, because let’s be real, how can a girl help falling in love with something that combines both her leet haxxor skillz and her not to be underestimated knack at experimental biology?

Feferi hits a switch, and the faceted dome overhead that is kept opaque during the day hours slowly become transparent again, letting in the light of two of the moons and a myriad of stars. Short of actually being in space, spending time in a mostly unpopulated desert in a largely untouched part of a galaxy really is the best way to stargaze. A couple of discreet lights set into the floor are already glowing softly, providing enough light to make out the shapes of most things in the room at least. Trolls don’t exactly go in for huge amounts of lighting in most of their spaces, which she supposes is understandable. At least the computers emit a gentle kind of phosphorescence as well, but Roxy decides she’s still going to switch on the little orb light on her personal computing device. It’s just too weird to sit around talking with someone in the dark, and all you can see of them is a dim silhouette and a pair of glowing eyes.

She warns her nocturnal friend before she takes a seat on the ground and activates it. Feferi watches the projected little ball of light rise up from the screen with avid fascination, her face lighting up in soft pastels as it cycles through one color after the other. She experimentally passes her hand through it, and giggles when the little light construct breaks apart around her fingers, fragments of it glittering on the gilded tips of her nails and her multitude of heavy rings, the glow penetrating the webbing around the base of the digits and showing up the fine lacework of veins under her skin. Roxy grins.

“Pffff, and you accuse me of being totes cute when I’m messing around with you guys’ technology. Look who’s talking.”

Feferi sticks out her grey tongue in response, broader and smoother than her own, just one more of those things that are all the more alien because they’re fundamentally familiar. She could write a whole thesis on the strange prevalence of the kind of life forms which humanity once, in its prevailingly self-absorbed manner, used to call humanoids. But she’d only add that thesis to like a thousand billion others examining this very phenomenon, and she’s got better things to do than indulge in rather frivolous vanity publishing... even _if_ the subject is fascinating and fun.

In the sky, the moons hang heavy and close to the horizon. She thinks she saw a sliver of the third one hulking behind the jagged rocks and scraggly flora of the desert plains to the south, but the overhead dome doesn’t reach far enough down for it to be visible while she’s sitting down. The visible ones are the color of a ripe blood orange and pool water respectively, but she hasn’t determined how that affects the light quality in the room yet. The globe light, much more imminent than any celestial body, now bathes Feferi in a pink glow, accentuating the magenta flecks in her grey eyes. Most of the rest of the trolls seem to have eyes that are fully filled in with their blood color, with a few exceptions. Eridan’s eyes are about half filled in. Gamzee’s still has a couple of grey flecks, but are mostly purple. Apart from them it’s only Karkat, who perhaps has a bit more color than Feferi, but only just.

The princess glances up at the moons and sighs, a scraping little sound echoing the sound of her exhalation.

“You miss home,” Roxy guesses.

Feferi starts guiltily, then smiles her very widest smile, the rows of teeth gleaming sharp and pearly white. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer. How did you guess?”

“Mm, just a hunch.” Roxy shrugs loosely, twirling a strand of almost white hair around one finger. As the light shifts to pale blue, she thinks that it looks kind of like cotton candy. “I guess it’s because I kind of miss home too. Except ‘home’ is a bit of a loose concept when no one planet has ever actually been, well, your home. I can’t even say that our ship is our home, even though that comes closest, because we’ve still spent more time out of it than in it, probably. So it’s more like… missing a feeling, I guess? This place is nice, but it doesn’t have that feeling yet. Not even after like eight months.”

Feferi tilts her head, her hair whispering across the floor and catching a bit against the moist silk of her skirt. “You don’t miss Earth? Isn’t that where humans orcaginated from?”

“Yeah, sure, the human race. But I’ve never actually been there, yanno?” She smiles a bit as Feferi’s eyes widen in understanding. “I was born on a lab in an asteroid orbiting Skaia’s main space station. Don’t even remember it. For as long as I can remember, all four of us have been traveling around to wherever my mom had work next, never stopping anywhere for long. Anyway, the Earth is pretty out of the way nowadays, mostly just this big resort where people go to retire or ‘find themselves’ or whatever. So I guess it’s never been a priority.”

Feferi nods slowly. “I sea. I guess that was a little silly of me. I mean, it’s not like every troll grows up on Alternia anemonemore, what with the size of the empire. It’s just always been…” She gestures vaguely and looks up at the sky again, as if she can penetrate the sheer, overwhelming distance if she just tries hard enough. “It’s a part of me. Our whale society is a big mess, and it’s not like home has ever been a _safe_ place or anyfin – I’m sure some of my fronds never _ever_ want to go back, what with how awful some things were. But I was lucky enough to be happy growing up there, and you know… I keep thinking that one day, once we’ve finally sorted everything out and things are better, maybe...” She makes a genuinely unhappy little face, eyes now moving to the blank wall that separates them from a view of the sea. Her voice is small and forlorn when she speaks. “But even so… it won’t be the same. It can’t be.”

Roxy doesn’t know what to say, how to parse the childish loss in her voice accurately. She opens her mouth hesitantly, but she’s too late. Feferi shakes her head and brightens back up as if someone had just flipped a switch somewhere, and Roxy feels a bit like she’s looking into a very strange mirror for a moment. “Whenever we can go back, I’m just _dying_ to show you so many places! Whelk, a lot of them you’d obviously need some equipment to visit without drowning, but I know you’re just going to love-”

She prattles on about her home planet, and it’s not like Roxy doesn’t listen, but she also can’t help thinking about the untold assumption in those words. That they’ll leave this planet together one day. That they’ll leave this planet at all, despite the political deadlock. That something will happen to drastically change their situation not just on this planet, but on a galactipolitical kind of scale… possibly even more widely spanning than that.

Outside, the sandstone cliffs bordering on the sea rise high enough that she can see them from where she’s sitting. On the top of one of the closest ones, a lonely yellow light glimmers, like a misplaced star. Dave is probably asleep by now, and maybe his shouty husband too. It had been a long day, and a pretty emotionally exhausting one, what with having to say goodbye to Jade and John. She knows how difficult it must be for her brother, even if he tries to be all stoic about it like he always does. It’s not much fun for anyone else either, but she knows how much he relies on having John around, and how good Jade has always been at redirecting him when he gets into a funk. What with everything, he could really use having them around. But she understands why they can’t just wait around here indefinitely as well. John would get restless quickly, and he’s kind of a pain to be around when he’s like that. While Jade would probably cope better, they can’t exactly let him go off on his own, now can she? So unless someone else feels inclined to go, this is how things have to be.

It had been a nice day, though. They’d gone down into the little town in the afternoon, now right next to the water at high tide, and wandered around the winding jetties and rooftop paths. People had been cautious, but by now they seemed to have gotten used to their alien visitors, at least somewhat. It had only taken a little while for all the children to flock to their group, to beg Tavros to ride along on the back of his chair, use Gamzee as a jungle gym, play tag with holograms that Jade projected for them, and make delighted and horrified faces as Vriska told them gruesome pirate stories, helpfully – and just as dramatically – translated by Rose. Though potentially the funniest part was watching Dirk trying to avoid interacting with the kids altogether, and seeing the face he made when Dave dragged him along despite his protests.

It had been nice, and a good way of wrapping up the visit. It sort of weighed out the part where the goodbyes themselves were pretty sad.

Roxy decides that dwelling on _that_ isn’t going to solve anything at all, and lets that thought sink back into obscurity for now. She’s having a nice sleepover with a friend, damn it! She’s going to allow herself to have a good time listening to Feferi talk about shoals of glowing fish lighting up the sea, and watching the sunset from the bottom of the sea where the rays can’t harm you. Roxy leans sideways against her friend, cool dry skin and slightly wet silk brushing against her elbow. Feferi pauses briefly and gives her a searching look, but when Roxy says nothing and just smiles at her, she nods and picks up her tale.

A bit later Sollux and Aradia join them, bringing snacks, blankets and a number of movies. Sollux flops down and puts his head in Feferi’s lap, claiming to have a headache, but doesn’t seem to mind as the rest of them talk and put on a movie. He just lies there and interjects a cynical comment here and there, and she joins Feferi and Aradia in teasing him in turn. It all feels very relaxed, as if just for a moment things are in balance, and she isn’t needed for anything more urgent than just being as chill as she can be. She catches Aradia watching her with her head curiously tilted a couple of times, but only gets a wide grin in response to her raised eyebrows every time. Whatever it is, clearly it isn’t urgent or even necessarily bad.

She starts drifting off where she sits after a while, her head leaning against Feferi’s arm, and even the nocturnal trolls start looking a little sleepy, what with having been awake kind of ‘early’ for their species. Pulling the blankets closer and cocooning her body in it, she gives Feferi a slight shove until she gets the hint and lies down too, carefully so as not to jostle Sollux. Aradia drags a bunch of cushions over and positively buries herself among them next to him. Roxy manages to pause the movie by the simple expedient of dragging her foot across the keyboard of the husktop, and dims the orb light with a voice command. There’s silence and darkness, and she looks up blearily at the stars, wondering where John and Jade are now. Probably far, far away already, even though it only was a couple of hours ago.

She closes her eyes.

Her communicator buzzes.

Making a face at it, she ponders if she could just maybe ignore it until the morning. What could possibly be important at this time of night, on this boring little planet, anyway? Maybe she can just… pretend she was already asleep? But no. She’s been a soldier for too long. Any message should be considered a top priority unless there is immediate danger involved in receiving it. She props herself up on her elbow, sighs, and reaches for the communicator.

Five seconds later, she nearly drops it, swearing loudly enough that the trolls jump and open their eyes. On the brightly lit screen are three curt messages in Dave’s bright red text, and they contain enough information to make her heart race as she reaches for her gun.

 

TG: code affleck

TG: coming down

TG: hostiles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honor of this hellcanon, I naturally had to do a cliffhanger <3 Sorry if it's a bit short, but HARK, A PLOT?


	18. In the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The excrement has officially hit the whirling device, and an unpleasant political plot is uncovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE WE GO. This one is longer, because there was no way of shortening down this chapter that wouldn't just be cumbersome and stupid. ALL ABOARD THE PLOT WAGON, CHOO CHOO. It only took me until I literally broke 100 000 words, well done me.
> 
> As a heads up, emetophobia warning on this chapter, and also violence ahoy.

Dave had fallen asleep pretty much the moment his head hit the pillow, the lines of his body slowly softening from tightly controlled exhaustion into genuine rest. Karkat tiptoes into the respite block only a minute after he lies down to check, and he’s indeed out like a primitive human light. He’s sleeping on his stomach, one arm wrapped around his pillow and the other lying loosely at his side. He’s still fully dressed, and apparently hadn’t even taken the time to take off his stupid shades properly. Now they’re slowly being nudged off his face by the pillow, digging into his nose a bit, and he’ll end up either sleeping on top of them or knocking them to the floor.

Karkat sighs testily and slides them off the rest of the way, transferring them to the bedside table. He moves slowly and carefully so as not to wake Dave, because he’s already noticed that the human sleeps restlessly; he’s apparently not the only one in this hive who is plagued by regular nightmares. A couple of times he’s passed outside the block and heard Dave tossing and turning in there, hands clasping frantically at the sheets, mumbling indistinctly and in clear distress. He hadn’t been sure how well he would take being woken up, it’s not exactly uncommon for trolls to react with instinctive violence if their sleep is disturbed, and he’s not taking any chances with humans. So usually he’d just tried to make a lot of noise outside of the block, until a sharp gasp or brief shout told him that Dave had woken up.

At least for now, his slumber appears untroubled. His breathing is easy, albeit seeming to catch a bit in his throat every now and again. That had worried Karkat when he first heard it, but it seemed to happen pretty regularly, so he has to assume that it’s a normal human thing. The one time he’d asked Dave about it, he’d said that he couldn’t tell if Karkat was actually serious about his question or if he was trying to be passive-aggressive about his ‘snoring’, whatever the hell that meant. Karkat had gotten annoyed and snapped back at him, causing Dave to adopt that smug shitstain deadpan expression and try to mess with him, and they’d had another pointless back-and-forth that left Karkat feeling aggravated and confused, but not necessarily angry. He can only assume that Dave feels roughly the same about all their idiotic exchanges, but neither of them seem to know how exactly to break the pattern. By now it’s practically a routine.

Karkat sighs, sitting down on the bed next to Dave. His added weight causes Dave’s hand to shift a bit, brushing against his own. Bigger than his, with long and slightly tapered ‘fingers’ rather than his own short and sturdy prongs. Overall softer than his own too, but the skin on the inside appears hardened, as if trying to protect the apparently rather delicate structures it hides. A large number of meandering white scars bear silent witness of how futile that apparently is. Over the very back of his hands there’s a faint dusting of very fine hair, almost invisible in the gloom, but he knows it catches the light and glitters when the sun hits it.

Karkat distractedly runs his own hand across it, feeling it tickle his skin gently. Just like that time right after the marriage ceremony, when there had been that… moment between them. He feels his cheeks heat up just thinking about it. What on any forsaken planet you’d care to mention had possessed him to keep moving his hand further and further down like that? Maybe it had been the sheer fascination of the softness under his hand, the alien texture. Or maybe, a treacherous little voice suggests, it had been the way Dave had started breathing so strangely the moment he moved past the human’s frond hinge, the way his lips had parted and his cheeks had started to turn pink...

He reminds said little voice that literally no one asked it, fuck you so very much, and he’d like to be able to ponder things rationally within his own damn think pan without interruptions from the most inane and embarrassing parts of his psyche. Clearly nothing of any kind of value would be lost if he just never heard from that particular dripsponged array of impulses ever again. And with that he wishes it a good – and above all silent – rest of eternity.

Not that it helps, of course. He’s always had a real bastard of a mind, that is clearly prepared to betray him at every slightest opportunity. Meaning that his eyes drift up to Dave’s face on their own accord, watching how open and defenseless it look like this, his cheek slightly squished by the pillow, jaw loose, forehead smoothed out. His eyelashes are as fair as his hair, but very long, and they flutter slightly against his cheek as his eyes move beneath twitching lids. Probably dreaming something, then, but nothing too bad. There is a familiar twinge in Karkat’s chest, rather shapeless and indecisive as of yet, but unmistakable even so.

Fuck fuck _fuck_ . He presses his hands over his eyes for a moment, before dragging them slowly down the sides of his face, letting out a soft hum of frustration. This is exactly what he needs, isn’t it? Human ‘marriage’ farce aside, what he clearly needs at this already fucked up juncture in his life is a sudden aberrant surge of romantic feelings for a borderline culturally incompatible alien. Why does he always _do_ this? Well not with aliens specifically, that’s a new one. But why must so many of his more straightforward feelings always devolve into this hideous mess of unspecified pity and not-quite-hatred, or at least always teeter awkwardly right on the very edge of it? It’s honestly even more embarrassing than Kanaya’s kneejerk ashen meddling, though at least he hasn’t reached Eridan levels of indiscriminate and undirected crushes.

As usual, he isn’t even sure in which quadrant to sort these particular feelings. Probably not blackrom, that’s about it, but that’s not actually all that helpful. Sure, he can say that it doesn’t feel much like his feelings for Gamzee, but that whole thing is so twisted up with guilt, uncertainty and regret that he’s not entirely sure if that’s helpful at all. Maybe he’s not even capable of unambiguous, normal pale feelings, or flushed feelings either for that matter – nevermind the whole different can of dirt noodles that represent his issues with blackrom. The thought has struck him before. Maybe he’s just a huge, self-sabotaging clusterfuck of a person, and there’s no way for him to have entirely normal relationships at all, period.

Fuck, what does he mean by ‘maybe’? Let’s be brutally honest here. He already knows he’s a mess. Might as well swallow _that_ particular medicine capsule dry, and choke on it if he doesn’t like it.

Even so… what harm is there in just enjoying the moment? Even if he’s probably going to find a way to completely botch this, is he really such a useless tool that he doesn’t deserve to just feel good about being close to someone who might not be as much of a waste of space as he thought? Someone who makes a space next to him every time when he has a nightmare. Whose laughter he’d listened to as he raced Roxy and Nepeta from rooftop to rooftop in the town below. Who would double down on teasing him every time, but who didn’t seem to mind listening to his rambling retorts. Who surprisingly enough draws pretty well when he actually tries, and who looks so absorbed when he does so, lips pursed and brow slightly furrowed. Someone who had sounded so raw and tired as he carefully skirted around obviously painful memories he didn’t want to divulge, and told Karkat that he didn’t know how to run away, even when he should.

Wow, this is embarrassing. He’s glad that no one is privy to his thoughts right now, or can even see the expression on his face. He’s glad he can’t either. He doesn’t need to know what kind of shitbrained sap he’d looked like.

Getting up, he walks around the bed and tentatively lies down next to Dave. He watches his back moving gently with each breath, the way his pale hair is smeared across the pillow, the slight smattering of strange skin discoloration that dusts his neck, the same kind that’s on his face and arms as well. He doesn’t touch him again, afraid to wake him up if he does, but scoots a bit closer to him still. It’s nice. Really, this human habit of sharing your respite hours is growing on him more and more. In fact, maybe he ought to get some rest? Not sleep necessarily, because for the record sleeping at night is still stupid, but just… close his eyes for a little bit?

He closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, he would assume that he’d indeed only had them closed for a second, if it wasn’t for two things. The first is that Dave is now standing up next to the bed, lifting something in both hands. The second is the two strange trolls that are in the room with them, one by the window and one by the door. The one by the door grins, and the moon catches on the sharp sickle shape her teeth form, and on the even sharper actual sickle in her hand. The incredibly _familiar_ sickle.

“Threshecutioner!” he gasps, and at the same time it registers that the thing Dave is holding is a gun of some sort. He’s trying to keep both trolls in his line of sight – but, Karkat realizes with a feeling like something icy crawling down his back, the light is low and it must be hard for him to see them properly.

“Which one’s fastest?” he says, voice stripped almost completely of any tone, other than a terse rasp.

“She is. The one by the door. But the-” His eyes flit to the hulking great figure by the window, weighing his huge club in one hand like an afterthought, and he gulps. “-the Laughsassin has more reach.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Dave says curtly.

Karkat is about to ask what he means by that, when the human suddenly tugs the field blanket from where it’s still lying crumpled at the foot of the bed and flings it over him. He makes a frightened noise, struggling against the fabric now restricting his vision and his movements, and he doesn’t understand what is happening. Even worse, he doesn’t understand _why_ it’s happening. Why would Dave incapacitate him when they’re both in mortal peril? Why’s he suddenly trying to _kill_ him? There’s the sound of energy blasts and collapsing plaster, and a high-pitched giggle as the shots are presumably avoided. “Guns are a pretty shitty close quarter weapon, or didn’t you know that, human?”

“Yeah,” Dave agrees with the laughing Threshecutioner. “Pretty fucking shitty.”

Karkat claws at the unyielding blanket, wanting to see what’s going on but too panicked to try to figure out how to get loose rationally. He hears the heavy steps of the Laughsassin striding closer, the rumble as he laughs scornfully under his breath.

“Night night… _Signless_.”

Well, that’s it then. This is where he finally dies.

He presses his eyes shut, bracing himself for the blow, trying to accept that this was always his fate. But he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to. He wants to live. He-

There’s an extremely loud buzzing sound and a bright yellow light shining right through his eyelids, causing him to flinch. A hiss and the sound of stumbling footsteps makes him assume that it surprised the Laughsassin as well. When Karkat blinks in confusion and pain, eyes streaming, he sees a strangely weblike light rippling back and forth across the blanket above him, his body enveloped in its golden glow.

Someone grabs his elbow and tugs him off the bed. He squawks, trying to fight the intruder, but it when it quickly becomes obvious that it is in fact Dave, he just slumps to the floor instead. The human is wearing his shades, which might be just as well, since the field blanket is still glowing brightly on the bed. The Threshecutioner appears to be hesitating, glancing at the Laughsassin, who has covered his eyes with his hands and is hissing in pain. The club is on the ground.

Dave lets go of Karkat, once more training his gun at the two trolls, who have been forced closer together on the other side of the room. “I gotta say, a gun is still a pretty shitty weapon right now,” he says, sounding way too calm. Then he suddenly tosses it aside, causing it to clatter across the floor and bump Karkat painfully on the knee. Their adversaries follow it with their eyes, looking perplexed. There’s a tearing sound of igniting air molecules as some kind of plasma dagger hisses and spits into life in Dave’s hand – Karkat has no idea where he even got that from. He’d been staring at the gun. “But it’s a _great_ fucking distraction.”

Dave darts forward, ducking easily under a swinging sickle, jumping over one of the attackers as she tries to tackle him off his feet. From the brief thud and her painful exhalation of breath, he uses her back to kick off from as he launches himself against her still partially blinded colleague. Acting instinctively, the purpleblood swings a crushing blow in Dave’s direction, surely with enough force to pulverize a fragile human skull. But Dave lands, grabs the arm, twists and pulls it forward, all in one balletic movement. There’s a horrible sizzle and the sound of burning flesh as the plasma dagger disappears into the Laughsassin’s exposed armpit, and he howls in pain and shock as it carves inexorably downwards, cutting through his chest plates as if they were made of cobwebs. Dave’s face is locked in a strange snarl of concentration as he pushes the dagger further and further in, burrowing through muscle, bone structure, organs, all while purple blood gushes over his fingers and his adversary convulses in agony.

Of course, that means that his weapon as well as his hands are completely occupied as the Threshecutioner charges again, sickle raised to part his head from his shoulders. He looks up, expression hardly changing at all as the blade descends.

There’s a series of loud, crackling blasts, cutting through the night accompanied with the violet tinted flashes of energy bolts. Over and over again they light up the confined space of the block, hitting flesh inexactly and indiscriminately, and the blueblood’s body twitches and jolts violently in response. She stumbles back toward the wall and collapses against it with a loud thump, sliding bloody and limp to the floor. A few more bolts hit the wall where her body had been, causing the stone to light up, to crack and emit a tortured whistling sound. Then there’s silence, save for the gun once more hitting the floor when Karkat’s numb and shaking hands finally manage to drop it. He stares down at it, at his hands, at Dave staring back at him, at the dead Threshecutioner, and her equally dead colleague finally collapsing to the floor. The room stinks of blood. His hands are cramping from holding down the trigger so hard.

Karkat tries to say something, to let Dave know that he’s okay maybe, but instead doubles over and vomits all over his own feet, the floor, the gun. The smell of acid and half digested food does nothing to improve the stench of carnage. Karkat struggles to breathe through his still cramping throat.

“Nice,” Dave says distractedly, disarming his dagger. With his other hand, he’s already typing something into his communicator, as if this is really the time for it.

“I- I- they… fuck, I thought you were trying to...” Karkat manages once he can speak again, throat raw with gall. He glances at the still faintly glowing blanket in wordless explanation, and Dave follows his gaze. “What the fuck were you…?”

“I told you, right? It can nullify blows. Converts kinetic energy into light somehow, I think. Sorry, I wasn’t exactly in a position to discuss battle strategy at length with you. Kind of makes me a neglectful spouse, I know, but also a slightly more alive one. Oh, and some would claim that giving away the surprise burst of light to the nocturnal enemy is something of an inexcusable goddamn blunder.” He walks over, glancing down at the puddle of vomit and the gun at its center with a grimace. “Well, you practically emptied out the charge on that one, so I think I’d rather not pick it up. Nevermind. If I know Dirk, there are more guns downstairs. Come on.”

Karkat blinks, feeling weak and still nauseous. “Go? Where?”

“Down to your friends. Best to rendezvous with our allies in case there are more of them, right?” He frowns. “Besides, I’m not the plan guy. That’s usually a Dirk or Rose thing… or Jade, but... yeah...” He shakes his head, getting behind Karkat and giving him a light shove toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“Right. Right.” He should’ve been saying that. He remembers when he was younger and still had delusions about being the ‘plans guy’; when he thought the only way of being a leader was to shout at people and try to get them to do what he wanted, despite not actually knowing what the fuck was going on. It’s embarrassing to think about, but still more embarrassing to realize how useless he was through this entire encounter. All he’d managed to do was pick up the gun that Dave had obviously dropped next to him for a reason, and he’d almost been too late.

‘Signless’ the Laughsassin had called him. It had probably been meant more as a slur against his blood, or maybe a taunt toward his ancestor. But the blow lands, probably unintentionally, as a reminder of how little he has managed to do with said ancestry. He remembers the figures in the cave, the hands on his face, the voices begging him because there is no one else to turn to. He remembers the feeling of burning iron eating its way into his flesh. And what has he done so far? Apart from letting Feferi use who he is in certain circles to gain leverage, he hasn’t done a single miserable, shivering thing. He’s even kept the dreams a secret from his friends, because he wanted to pretend like it wasn’t really happening to him, that it wasn’t real somehow. They would take it as proof, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that.

Pathetic, really. He used to tell people that he was a hatched leader. He still likes to cling to the belief that he could actually lead people to greatness, doesn’t he? But when there’s finally clear evidence that this is in fact something he’s made for, that he’s _needed_ for something, he sticks his head in the sand like the giant featherbeast he is.

It’s not exactly what he wanted. But it’s a lot better than what someone like him should expect. A lot better than he deserves. And he’s fucking it up.

He can’t help turning to look at his would-be-killers before he leaves the room. Dave had just walked straight past them once the fight was over, just like Vriska or Eridan would. Just like all of his friends would by now, if he’s honest with himself. But he can’t help thinking about it; wondering what kind of people they were, how their lives had managed to bring them to this point; wondering what they’d been thinking right before the end. Had they, like he had just now, thought about how much they wanted to keep living? Or had they been prepared to die tonight? They’d seemed so certain of themselves. Someone had probably told them that they were there to cull a weak lowblood without any powers and a squishy, helpless alien. An easy job, hardly worth mentioning, but worth some prestige because some superstitious idiots saw the runty mutant as some sort of leader.

The problem is that he can’t really tell himself that he or anyone he knows is in any way better people than these two. Sure, they’re asshole highbloods, but… in different circumstances, can he tell himself that one of his friends couldn’t just as easily be lying in a still slowly expanding puddle of blood on the ground now? If he looks just at the blood, it could just as easily be Gamzee or Equius that were killed here tonight. That he helped kill. Him. He pulled that trigger.

His throat contracts again, and he tries to tell himself that he had to, but it doesn’t help.

Dave slips past him and grabs his hand, pulling him with him. His fingers are cold, icy cold against Karkat’s own. Glancing at him as they run down the stairs together, he looks tense, his mouth locked in a thin line and his neck held stiffly. Well, that’s hardly surprising, is it? Other than that, he can’t read much from his body language at all. The signs he’d look for in a troll aren’t necessarily the same in a human. His weirdly pale skin looks like it might be a little bit paler than normal, but Karkat isn’t entirely sure. Once they reach the bottom floor and he has to stop to wheeze for breath for a moment, however, he notices that what he took for just the jolting movement of running doesn’t in fact stop, because Dave’s entire body is shaking.

The human stops for a moment to look at him, check that he’s fine probably, but then he pulls his hand free and walks over to a metal locker wedged under the stairs. He holds out his communicator to it, and it responds with a whir and a click before springing open. Dave snorts.

“Half a goddamn arsenal. I’d say I’m surprised and appalled by my brother’s general lack of trust in the good of sentient organisms as a whole, but that would be a filthy lie. Still, it comes in handy. There are even some troll weapons in here. Crafty bitch.” He waves Karkat over, and honestly, for all that he’s still feeling sick over what happened upstairs, being unarmed right now also feels like a terminally bad idea. “Let’s just grab what we need and run.”

Karkat nods, reaching past Dave to grasp the familiar handle of a sickle. It strikes him that the one the Threshecutioner had wielded upstairs is probably of an even better quality, but there is literally nothing in the world that could convince him to run back up those stairs and pry it from her cold, dead hand. Not when there’s a perfectly serviceable one right here. Dave raises his eyebrows slightly, but doesn’t comment on the choice. He just hands him a compact looking gun, shows him how to arm it and tells him to hide it somewhere on his person. Then he straps on a holster with practiced ease, and clips the handle of some kind of ion or plasma blade onto one of his belt hooks. His hands are still shaking, and he’s breathing strangely for someone who is standing still, in shallow and fast little gasps. But before Karkat can comment on it, he closes the locker with a bang and sets off toward the door, leaving Karkat to scramble hurriedly after him.

They run as fast as they can downhill without risking life and limbs. Dave must be moving half blind, but using any kind of light source would make them an obvious target and they both know it. Even so, he’s incredibly graceful and has unreasonably long fucking legs, meaning that Karkat’s night vision isn’t actually much of an advantage. He still finds himself struggling to keep up, and doesn’t have enough in the way of breath as the cold night air burns his lungs to tell him to wait up. Besides, they’re all alone out here. There’s no time to waste.

Karkat is fairly certain that the two sent to kill them would have gone alone, but they might have backup waiting somewhere out there in the dark in case they don’t report back within a certain time frame. Against a unit of four, five, ten of them… how long would they survive? Say, to the nearest decimal?

There are two bright lights traveling up the side of the slope toward them. Karkat feels his whole vascular system seize up, but it looks like they’re heading up from the human side of the cliff. Slowing downs so he’s next to him, Dave nods in what appears to be relief. “There they are.” He appears to be measuring the rapidly decreasing distance between them and the lights with his eyes, then suddenly grabs Karkat under the arms and shouts, “Catch!” before flinging him bodily down the slope and presumably towards his death by collision with one of whatever those vehicles are.

Except the one he’s heading for swerves slightly, and something hard and metallic grabs Karkat in a clumsy and uncomfortable vice grip. “Hey-up, my old chap! My apologies for the rough treatment, but we’re in a bit of a hurry!” shouts a voice in his ear over the howl of air around them, instantly telling Karkat that the Jake human is the one who managed to postpone his appointment with his maker. Looking up now that he’s fairly sure he’s not actually having some sort of nervous collapse right at the moment, he sees that Jake’s other arm is holding on to Dirk, who in turn is holding on to some kind of curved metal prow covered in buttons and levers, and appears to be steering whatever perilous piece of junk they’re flying. Seriously, it only vaguely resembles some sort of hoverboard, looking like it was lashed together from random shit from a dross disposal area – and considering what he knows of Dirk, it probably was.

Glancing back, he catches a glimpse of Jane on a second one of these crazy hovering contraptions, looking like she’s regretting every choice that brought her to this point, with Dave holding on behind her. He must’ve jumped on right after throwing Karkat onto the first one – and so help him his bothersome ancestor, he’s going to kick his ass for that at a later date. When there’s more time, and he isn’t feeling quite so close to keeling over in a dead faint or having a panic attack, and also isn’t trying not to throw up what little he has left to throw up on Jake.

They climb over a rocky outcrop, moving almost vertically for a moment, and Karkat feels his feet slipping off their newly found foothold. But Jake and Dirk seem to have their feet secured by some kind of straps, and they’re carried safely over the crest of the rock only to plummet quickly down the steep incline beyond. Further down, he can now clearly see the scattered moonlight playing lazily across the eddies and wavelets of the dark lake water, and the solid black shape of the ostentatious hive the rest of his friends have been staying in. He can also see a red and blue light streaking toward them at breakneck speed up the hill, and it seems like only seconds later when both suicidal hovergarbage rides and their passengers are surrounded by the same glow as Sollux turns in midair and matches their speed. Around them a bright bubble of light crackles madly, not particularly inconspicuous, but Karkat knows that practically nothing can penetrate the field while Sollux maintains it.

“We can’t leave you alone for five fucking seconds, can we?” he demands acerbically, but Karkat is accustomed enough to his moodiness to recognize the thinly veiled worry. “AA is sweeping the area for enemies. The rest are waiting down there.”

Karkat would ask if it’s wise to send Aradia out alone to do that, but generally speaking that’s not a question you ask about people who can tear apart buildings with their minds. He still worries about it, though.

“I’m really fucking glad to see you,” Dirk shoots back at Sollux before Karkat can assemble a coherrent answer. “Could you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“I didn’t have time to rig any brakes on these damn things.”

“Oh for _fuck’s_ sake…!”

 

* * *

 

 The long and the short of it is that somehow, they do in fact manage to stop. It is not elegant. It leaves Dave and Jane lying in a bruised pile along with about half the DIY hoverboard, a little way away from where Karkat, Jake and Dirk comprise a second similar pile. There’s some very loud swearing on the general theme of the entire human race coming from it, so at least Karkat appears to be fine. Jake flops over on his back and groans. Dave tries to tactfully remove himself from where he’s lying with his face half buried in Jane’s ample cleavage.

Jane helps him the rest of the way by firmly shoving him sideways onto the ground, jumping to her feet and marching – somewhat unsteadily – over to grab Dirk by the front of his shirt and lift him several inches off the ground. “You complete- ‘ _Look, Jane, you’re the only other person with two_ _reliably_ _functional hands, you have to steer it.’ ‘You’ll do fine, Jane.’ ‘This is the brake lever, Jane. Don’t worry, you can’t fuck this up even if you try.’_ Why I ought to- to-” Apparently she can’t come up with anything bad enough, because all that she manages beyond that point is a long, frustrated growl as she shakes Dirk a couple of times, before letting him go and standing up straight again.

"Easy there, Janey," Jake ventures, raising a placating arm.

"Don't you Janey me, mister! Your idiot boyfriend nearly got us killed!"

Jake opens his mouth, but then closes it again. It appears he can't really dispute this fact, so he turns to look questioningly at Dirk as well.

“In my defense, that _was_ the brake lever.” Jane narrows her eyes dangerously, and Dirk winces. “It’s just that I hadn’t had time to connect it to anything. The whole thing was a bit of a side project.”

“Oh really! So why didn’t you _say_ so?”

Dirk raises his eyebrows a bit. “Because you’re not an idiot. I wasn’t sure you’d get on if I told you that the brakes didn’t work.”

She gives him a withering look, then sighs and buries her face in her hands. “And what does that make you, exactly?”

That gets a short laugh. “I think you already know. You alright there, Vantas?”

“No! No I’m not even remotely alright, which is the only reason why I haven’t kicked your ass yet, you crevice fondling, lardsponged shitlord!” A beat, during which Sollux snickers loudly. “And you! Are you going to stop standing there tickling your nook all day or are you going to help me up?”

By this time, the rest of the trolls as well as Rose and Roxy have managed to reach them. Dave finds himself getting helped to his feet by Gamzee, who pulls him upright as if he can barely feel his weight, and then receives a quick hug by Roxy before she once more she once more lifts her rifle and aims it out into the darkness. She doesn’t even seem to notice or care that this leaves a number of sticky purple blood stains all down her pajamas.

Any minute now, Dave is sure that he’s going to actually feel something.

Rose has her eyes closed, a frown of concentration creasing her forehead, her lips moving silently. “Apart from Aradia, I can feel a number of troll minds out there, but they’re too far away to get a proper read on. There are at least seven separate groups spread out in the wasteland though.”

“I count nine groups of two each.” Vriska isn’t visibly armed like most of the rest of her friends, not that this makes her look any less dangerous. She gazes out into the darkness with a studied lack of concern, a vicious smile on her lips. “Probably hanging back to see if we’re making a run for it. But if we go inside, I expect they’ll attack before the sun comes up.” Her smile tightens into something a bit more mocking. “What do you say, your hiiiiiiiighness? Are we running again?”

Feferi bites her lower lip, an indecisive flicker in her eyes, but then she straightens up. “We-”

“We’re going inside.” Karkat’s voice is still a bit unsteady and frayed, but he stands with his chin raised, and there’s something… different about him. Something Dave can’t place. “We need to regroup. Besides, we can’t get off the planet yet… isn’t that right, Feferi?”

Feferi looks at him, searching and grave, and then suddenly smiles unexpectedly. It’s not like her usual bright, cheerful smile: it’s rather taut and brief, but there is something warm and genuine about it even so. As if something unspoken had passed between them in that one look, and she’s pleased with whatever it told her. “Karkat is right. We’ll go inside and try to formollusc a plan. If we have to fight our way out later… well, we’ll deal with it.”

The rest of the trolls are glancing at each other, wearing a variety of very pointed expressions. It’s pretty obvious that there’s some significance here that the humans are missing by a mile. And whatever it is, Dave is absolutely certain that it has everything to do with what is happening tonight – and just as certain that the trolls have been hiding a lot from them.

There’s a soft sound as Aradia touches down, an errant shadow detaching herself from the chthonic darkness above. “We should get inside. I don’t think they actually want to use it, but there’s a drone ship standing by over the sea to the northwest, and that means they have a visual on us. It’s probably not a good idea to stand around talking.”

The moment he gets inside, Dave stumbles off to the nearest bathroom, mumbling something about washing some of the blood off. Then he spends what feels like an eternity dry heaving over the toilet, trying not to throw up just like Karkat had, and longer still with his hand pressed over his mouth, unsure if he’s trying to stop himself from hyperventilating or holding in a scream. It really makes no sense. This is nothing he hasn’t done before, nothing even all that bad. But for some reason it feels just like after his very first battle... and in some way he cannot define it also feels worse.

Maybe it’s because he hadn’t been on a mission, hadn’t fallen asleep being aware that at any moment he might have to fight for his life, hadn’t prepared himself for the inescapable knowledge that at any time everything can go wrong. He’d lain down to sleep thinking about how he was already missing his friends, his mind weighed down but also warm with the memories of the day, and had apparently passed out straight away. The first time he woke up again, it was to find Karkat lying next to him, curled up close with an arm slung almost protectively over the small of his back. He hadn’t heard him come in, hadn’t stirred when he lay down, hadn’t even noticed someone wrapping an arm around him. Somehow that was a nice thought. As if Karkat belonged there with him, had made a space in his life without Dave even noticing. As if he was safe with him.

The second time-

He has no clear memory of anything before the point where he was standing up and aiming a gun at them. Everything before that, which included both identifying that there were intruders in his room as well as grabbing the gun and getting to his feet, must’ve happened instinctively. He’d only seen them as vague shapes with glowing eyes, had thought shit, _shit,_ I need some kind of light. That’s when he’d come up with the idea to cover Karkat with the blanket to protect him, grabbing his shades in the same movement to protect his own eyes from the searing light.

He fills his hands with cold water, lowering his face into it, scrubbing hard to get rid of the smears and splatters of purple blood. So much could’ve gone wrong. Karkat could’ve struggled free. Or the bigger troll could’ve pulled the blanket off before hitting him. The other attacker could’ve disregarded his vague firing in her direction and moved in while his attention was divided. She could’ve seen him grab the dagger when the blanket discharged and not fallen for the gun distraction.

Karkat could’ve fired too late to save him.

But that’s how it works, isn’t it? No plan is flawless. If they’ve been taught anything, it’s to think fast on their feet, and to adapt their strategy whenever things go wrong. He’s lived his whole life hearing stories from everyone about how this was what made his uncle a galaxywide hero. He’d been told he was lucky to train under a tactical genius like him.

Washing off his neck and arms as best he can, he decides this is as good as it gets, and he doesn’t much feel like hanging out alone with his thoughts anymore. They’re providing incredibly awful and unruly company, and he doesn’t feel like he needs to take that kind of bullshit. So he wanders up the stairs to the room where the rest of them are gathered, and right into an argument. Not that he would’ve expected anything else. Collective argument seems to be the only way trolls make any decisions at all, according to his still somewhat limited experience.

“-you would just listen to me! It’s important.”

Feferi rubs her fins tiredly. “We don’t have time for these kind of emotional theatrics right now, Eridan. Can’t it wait?”

“No.” There’s a chorus of not particularly well-stifled groans, and he glares around the room. “Why can’t a guy try to come with some helpful advice without everyone being so fucking mistrustful?”

“Well,” says Vriska, sounding bored, “mostly because all your ‘helpful’ advice is about killing all aliens and also all land dwellers. It gets reeeeeeeeally dull after a while! Talk about a really shitty one-trick hoofbeast.”

“And because the last time we were in mortal peril, your so-called solution was to try to kill a party member,” Kanaya points out, noticeably keeping her body right between Karkat and Eridan.

“Yeah, I can’t actually say that trying to shoot me for being the person who least deserved to breathe your precious fucking oxygen inspires great confidence in your conflict resolution skills,” Karkat agrees, leaning tiredly against Gamzee’s arm. He looks like he’s about to straight up pass out any moment now. Dave tries to move in his general direction without actually walking right through the argument.

Eridan’s mouth twists. “It _wasn’t about that_!” he shouts, loud enough to make Nepeta and Tavros jump, and Kanaya to reach threateningly for something that looks like a chainsaw with a really bad attitude. “I know I said- I said a lot a fucking things, alright? And sure, fine, I didn’t want to die by slowly choking to death with the rest a you, but… but that wasn’t why, alright?”

Karkat sighs, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. “Then what? I’m sure we’re all literally wetting ourselves in excitement to know why you thought putting a big hole in me was this amazing idea. I mean, I sure know I am.”

“Because- You could’ve said- I thought we were _friends_!” It comes out a lot less vicious and a lot more pitiful than Eridan was probably going for. Dave quietly sits down on Karkat’s other side, watching this whole troll drama unfold. “And then I find out that we’re all there, that we’re going to _die_ , and it’s all because of you! They were out to kill you all along, they- All those rumors we heard, all that talk about the Signless, all of that and- and we used to laugh at it, remember? I just thought you were sensitive about your blood! I even tried to be nice about it. And it turns out you were keeping it a secret because… because you didn’t trust me, right? I was going to have to die because of you, and you didn’t even trust me enough to fucking _tell_ me that.”

Karkat just stares at him, eyes wide and his mouth hanging slightly open in shock. The room is silent. You could practically hear a pin fall. Eridan looks embarrassed and bewildered, and there are pale violet tracks down his cheeks. Then Karkat sighs and buries his face in his hands for a moment, as if gathering strength.

“Look,” he says, and despite his tired body language, his voice is surprisingly kind. “It wasn’t like that, okay? There were four people who knew about it at the time, and I only told one of them. Terezi knew because-” his cheeks darken slightly, “-she apparently _smelled_ it on me, and connected the dots. Vriska knew because she can’t stay out of peoples fucking minds. I told Feferi because it was something she needed to know. And the last person is the one who told _me_ about it – that is, about the fucking Signless and what he did, all the shit people are expecting of me just because I was born with this despicable mutant sludge in my veins. Alright?”

The unexpectedly soft response seems to derail Eridan’s anger somewhat. He sits down heavily next to Jake, who pats his shoulder and mutters something that sounds like, “Steady on.”

“The one who told you… Who?”

Someone clears their throat a bit hesitantly, and everyone turns to stare at Nepeta, who flushes and squirms a bit under the sudden intense attention. “When I found the hatchright left behind by my ancestor, it turned out not to be any kind of weapon or treasfur, nothing like that. It was just… a message.” Dave has no idea what she’s talking about, it sounds like complete nonsense, but all the trolls are making faces as if it’s some kind of revelation. “It said I needed to find the new Signless and tell him all these things. That- that I was fated to.” She looks down, cheeks now deep green and her expression wretched. Dave isn’t sure why, but again it seems like the trolls are picking up on it. Karkat squirms awkwardly where he sits. Nepeta sets her jaw, and it’s obvious that whatever it is that’s making her look so mortified, she has decided to power through it. “So the first time I saw Karkitty’s sign… that’s when I knew. So I told him.”

“And I, to no one’s great surprise, acted like the rankest asshole in this or any other galaxy about it,” Karkat fills in, mercifully turning the attention back to himself. “You know how I used to riff on you for the whole Ancestor bullshit, Eridan. I didn’t believe a word of it back then. But when the rumors of the new Signless started, I told Feferi, because I figured maybe she could use it to get more lowbloods to join our side. I just thought it was a dumbass political ploy.” He grimaces. “And then the highbloods started to try to kill me. Apparently _they_ believed it.”

“And that’s what this whole agreeing to the political marriage thing was all along.” This time everyone turns to stare at Dave, who is just about as surprised to hear his own voice as they are. But he’s kind of pissed too, so he’s not going to let that stop him. “I’m right, aren’t I? They went along with it because they figured it would be Karkat who ended up the sacrificial spouse, and shit, what better way to get rid of him? All they had to do was wait a while, then off him quickly in the night and blame the humans. Let’s be real here, at no point in this debacle did they actually give a fuck about starting a war with us, because that’s not how they think, right? That’s how Feferi thinks, and they used that against her. They pretended to want to avoid fighting, so that when Karkat was lying there dead on human territory, they could point the finger at us instead. Hey look, lowbloods, your hero is dead and humans did it! So sorry for your loss, absolutely gonna send a bucket of flowers or worms or something for his funeral, whatever it is that trolls do, now lets make war on these monkeys and forget all about your dumb little rebellion.”

The trolls glance at each other, and he reads what he already knows in their expressions. Vriska hisses loudly, kicking over a decorative vase. “I knew it! They were playing us this whole time, and we went along with it like _suckers_ ! We practically gave him away to them like a bunch of _lame losers_. Well played, princess!”

Feferi had buried her face in her hands, but now drops them into her lap and straightens her back. She stares back at Vriska, stares her down, her chin haughtily lifted. “Yes, it was a mistake, though I didn’t have many options at the time. But perhaps before we start pointing fins at each other too, we ought to work out what to do next?”

Vriska looks like she’s contemplating regicide, but then Terezi grabs her by the arm and pulls her back into her seat. Vriska makes a halfhearted effort to pull free, and Terezi reaches out and rather brusquely pats her cheek, letting out a strange low shushing sound. Something about the gesture makes Vriska straight up fold against her, which is pretty impressive. Terezi nods. “Okay, enough of that. Fighting each other isn’t actually going to make us less dead before morning comes. Time to make some plans. Karkat?”

But Karkat has turned to look at Dave, who still barely knows what to do with his sudden anger, or the way his heart still hasn’t slowed down since the attack back at their place, and especially not the uncomfortable sting of betrayal. He reaches out hesitantly, places his hand over Dave’s, and it’s only then he realizes how hard it’s shaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to pull you into this whole mess, although I realize that’s some spectacularly stupid wishful thinking on my part. I just… wanted it all to go away for a while, and I guess on top of just generally being the worst kind of tool, I also put you in danger. I… shit. I fucked up so bad, there aren’t even any proper words for it, and trust me, I’m practically an expert at talking about fucking up. So… like I said, I’m sorry.”

Dave breathes out slowly, shakily. “Okay. Though for the record, that’s ‘okay, I accept your apology’, not ‘that was all okay with me’ because like hell it is. Got it?” Karkat nods. “Right. I mean, let me be clear, I don’t actually think being kept in the dark is some kind of get-out-of-jail card for attempted murder, that’s all on that dude,” he nods in Eridan’s direction, and gets an affronted look back. “But once we get out of this immediate goddamn danger, you’ve got a lot of overdue answers, alright? Like I’m talking serious fines, and the librarian’s gonna look at you dirty, maybe even slap your face kind of overdue. So keep that in mind.”

“Got it.” There’s an actual smile pulling on Karkat’s lips, the first proper one Dave thinks he’s seen, and it does something strange to his face. To his own stomach too. It suddenly lurches, not the kind of gymnastics it performed in the bathroom earlier, but more like a weird little bounce. What the fuck?

“So about the immediate goddamn danger,” Dirk says, inserting his voice into the strange moment like a bucket of cold water. Definitely the unsexy kind of bucket, whatever that even means.

“Yes, I too think we should perhaps return to that,” murmurs Rose, showing exactly how urgent she apparently finds it by still not looking up from her knitting.

“Right. As I was _saying_ , if you people would just let me talk for two seconds straight,” Eridan says, arms crossed defensively across his chest. “We don’t actually have to sit around here and wait for them to attack, _or_ try to leave the planet right away. There’s a third option.”

That actually get everyone’s attention. “There is?” Jake demands, since everyone else is apparently too dumbfounded to ask.

Eridan shifts his shoulders back proudly. “As a matter of fact, yes. Sometimes is helps to have someone around who actually knows how to think like royalty.”

Dave thinks about the whole royalty thing, about how that was the thing that landed them in this mess, this planet and its backwards way and his accidental princedom. From the small laugh that Roxy lets out, and the amused smile pulling at Rose’s lips, they’re thinking about the same thing. Dirk raises his eyebrows, nudging Eridan with his foot.

“Alright then. From one prince to another, I suggest you get to the point. We’re waiting.”


	19. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a tactical retreat is necessary, even if our heroes fully intend to argue about it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now that we've all been harrowed by the epilogue, how about a palate cleanser? Yes? I'll probably have some shorter stories up in a little while too, maybe.

They all stand around in awkward silence as Eridan fiddles with the control node for the aventube entrance down in the access block. He certainly seems to have some sort of plan, but Feferi can’t say if that is comforting or worrying just yet. On the face of it, the very first step seems incredibly inadvisable, but she’s not sure how to bring that without immediately putting him on the defensive, and so she dithers instead. Luckily for her, Vriska has probably never dithered in her entire lifespan. It’s why Feferi is sure that she’s going to be incredibly useful once the conflict develops into the inevitable war they’ve all been planning for – as long as she can stop herself from beating her to death with one of her own colossal game manuals. She’s really been getting on her very last gill lately.

“Okay, you know what, since no one else wants to say anything, I guess it’ll be up to me to bite – as usual! I kiiiiiiiind of hope that you know that if we go back out the same way we came in, we’ll be sitting grubs. They’ll pick us off one by one.”

Eridan bristles, but uncharacteristically keeps fiddling with what he’s doing even as he replies, not rising to the obvious bait like he normally would. “Come on, Vris, give me some credit here. A course I know we can’t go out the same fucking way.”

“I think I’m giving you plenty of credit just by standing here like an idiot so you can show us your _brilliant_ plan.” Vriska rolls her eyes so far back, for a moment you can only see a couple of the pupils in her left eye. “I’m allowing you to waste valuable time that we could be using to work out an _actual_ battle plan. Aren’t you grateful?”

“There!” This time, Eridan just outright ignores her, to Vriska’s obvious irritation. There’s a series of distant bubbling and creaking sounds, and Feferi finally realizes what’s happening. He’s shifting the aventube to a new port. Which… she didn’t actually know there was more than one setting for that, but she supposes he’s kept himself busy lately, and it actually makes sense that he’s hooked up the hive to his project. She thinks a bit ruefully that she hadn’t been taking him all that seriously, so she certainly hadn’t spent much time considering how he was accessing the construction site.

“Ohh,” she breathes, as the full implications of the situation dawns. “There’s another way out!”

“Oh, yeah,” Sollux says offhandedly next to her. “I thought you knew about that. I programmed the port hookup for him.” As everyone turns around with impeccable comedic timing to stare at him, Sollux raises his eyebrows a bit defensively. “What? Did you think that idiot would’ve been able to do it on his own or something?”

“I think it’s more that you’ve gone out of your way to not speak as much as a fucking word to Eridan for sweeps,” Karkat shoots back from where he’s been standing huddled in a corner. For a moment earlier, Feferi had been sure that she’d once again glimpsed the leader he’s truly meant to be, but it looks like he’s back to being his usual disgruntled self – at least for now.

She does agree with him, though. It is surprising for that reason, and also a bit because Sollux hasn’t mentioned anything about it to her at any point. Maybe he talked to Aradia about it? Feferi glances at her, but her expression is as usual almost impossible to read, the same enigmatic smile as always. She can’t see why Aradia would be secretive about that though - and usually she’s pretty blunt and doesn’t care much about dancing around things. Maybe Sollux just didn’t think it was worth mentioning.

Her matesprit sighs, throwing up his hands. “He whined at me, alright? For a fucking week or something. If you’d had to listen to him going ‘Sol, Sol, Soooooool’ for that long, you tell me that you wouldn’t do literally anything just to shut him up. So how about some appreciation for not just killing him, you ungrateful piece of shit?” It’s honestly a pretty good impression of Eridan’s most pitiful nasal drawl. Feferi is equal parts impressed and appalled.

Dirk suddenly snorts, like a man who has finally figured out the joke. “Oh, I get it. Everyone knows that the truest mark of royalty is to always have an escape route, to use in the eventuality that the crowd starts building guillotines in the square. You have to consider me humbled, since it took me this long to figure it out.”

Either the backhanded nature of the statement completely passes Eridan by, or he just doesn’t care, it’s honestly hard for Feferi to tell. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Don’t ever trust no one, and always have a backup plan.”

Roxy laughs, and Rose covers her mouth to hide her smile. Even Dave, who still looks pale and out of sorts, manages a brief grin. “Shit, sounds familiar somehow, but I can’t put my finger on it just now. It’s downright eerie, I tell you.”

Dirk raises one eyebrow. “No, man, you can’t just call me out like this. It’s not cool.”

There’s a sound of a very distant thump, followed by the roar of water being forced out of the air locks. Then the membrane covering the exit shivers and pulls apart, revealing glimmering lights and a tunnel sloping steeply downwards into darkness. “Well, what are you waiting for?” Eridan looks a little too smug, but right now no one feels like dealing with that, as long as they have a way out of the hive without having to confront their would-be attackers. Before anyone else has a chance to move, Dirk and Roxy immediately take point position, guns drawn, and step quickly down the aventube, with Eridan following immediately behind them. It doesn’t feel like so long ago when Feferi herself would have eagerly tried to go next; she has never actually left the hive in this way at all, since she usually swims, and whatever waits at the end of the tunnel is completely new to her. It would be perfectly natural to be excited about that, right? But instead she waits patiently as the rest of them sort out a formation that leaves her squarely in the middle. She honestly hates being treated like this, but with the situation as it is now, she can understand the necessity. Now that their attempt to take Karkat out failed, and they must assume that their intentions have been made clear, it’s not certain what their opposition do next, but she can guess. The previous equilibrium is broken, leaving them all in a volatile situation, which she can only suppose that they’ll solve one way: Kill Karkat. Capture her. Eliminate whoever stands in the way of doing so.

Karkat looks like he’s ready to join Dave at the back of the group, but she firmly grabs his arm and drags him with her. As sweet as it is that he appears to be growing closer with his human husband, his safety comes first. Before her own, even. She’s got her own ambitions, her own vision for the future, and she’s not about to downplay her own importance for the rebellion any time soon. But she’s also aware that at the end of the day, she wouldn’t be doing this at all if it wasn’t for her blood. It’s not that she wouldn't care, of course, but she doesn’t actually think that she’d be much of a leader if she hadn’t literally been hatched to become one. And as she thinks of a future where she doesn’t have to be, where she’s not considered better than anyone else… all she can imagine is that she’ll feel relief.

So different from Karkat, then, who hardly used to talk about anything else except how he was made for leadership, despite being hatched for nothing but a swift, brutal execution in their society. He’s been less vocal about it lately, and he has probably questioned if he really has what it takes, but to everyone else there is no question about it. Under the right sort of pressure, he really does know how to bring those around him together, and it’s a quality that has nothing to do with giving orders or being obeyed, or even making plans or battle strategies. To be honest… he really isn’t that great at that last part. That’s not important; others can do that for him. The important part is that he cares, _really_ cares, with a desperate ferocity that makes everyone around him care too. Sometimes they’ll be embarrassed about it, or frustrated, or even angry, but they’ll still actually give a shit.

Sure, the thing with his ancestor is important too – she has seen how much it means to people, how many sacrifices have gone into keeping the stories alive, and if it wasn’t for all that then Karkat wouldn't even be alive today. But she can’t shake the feeling that what really matters, what has always mattered, is that someone has to to take a stand. It’s hard, and not actually all that glamorous, and sometimes you only do it because all other alternatives are absolute shit. But she’s sure that he’ll be able to do it.

He looks awkward as he walks next to her, arms crossed, staring down at his feet. For all his previous claims and shows of importance, he takes pretty poorly to being the most vital member of their party, and she can’t say that she’s surprised. He wants to be listened to and he wants to help people, that’s just what he’s like, but Feferi thinks that he’s hit the same rough side of that deal that has been chafing against her for sweeps now. He doesn’t want to be someone that others throw themselves into danger for. He doesn’t want anyone to die so he can live. He doesn’t want his life to weigh heavier than anyone else’s. It’s just that now, he no longer has any choice in the matter.

Maybe they’re not all that unlike each other after all, she thinks as she reaches out and catches his flailing arm as he stumbles, offering him an encouraging grin for which the only return is implacable sullenness. Isn’t he being stong-armed into this position of leadership by his blood too, in a way? She’s still certain that he’ll make his own choices and they will be good ones, but right now there are some inevitable expectations that come prepackaged with being the new Signless, and those are hard to ignore. He must really feel the weight of it all, to judge by his very obvious attempts to stall this particular revelation, to act as if the whole marriage ploy somehow negated his importance. She’d had similar delusions when they first had to leave Alternia behind, of no longer being fettered by all the obligations that came with her blood, her lusus, her home, her entire species. She was going to turn over a new page, stop serving expectations, kiss a pretty boy, remake herself as a different kind of leader, break up with Eridan, and start a revolution!

It was never as simple as that, as she’d quickly found out. Millions of years of bloodshed and oppression doesn’t wash out just like that, she still had an inescapable duty which bound all of her kind within the grasp of its dominion… and also, relationships are really, really hard!

No, they’re not actually all that different, she and Karkat. Not when she actually looks at it. You could even say that just like him, she had in fact just been hatched to die a brutal and untimely death. She understands, of course, that it’s not the same. Her life simply had a set date of expiration, a royally sanctioned point of no return. She was expected to serve their lusus for as long as she was a child, and then she’d be just another dead princess in a long line of dead princesses. Until that point, however, and within those caveats, she had been allowed to do as she pleased. That’s not the same as living in constant fear of a moment that might arrive at any time, of knowing every time you go to sleep you might never wake up, of listening for the sound of drone wings even in the deepest silence. It’s not the same as a life of constant shame and dread, of hating the very blood that keeps you alive, of trying to erase every slightest sign of your divergence. Grey text, sleeplessness, constant vigilance and defensiveness. Everything in its right place, nothing out of order, because even the lightest scrape or bruise could mean detection.

As for their respective ends, she wouldn’t say that there is any kind of glory or even dignity in the kind of death she was meant for. It would be a slaughter, pure and simple. But even a slaughter signifies _something_ more than to simply be erased from life as if genetics had made a minor clerical error, just a bit of biological housekeeping and nothing more.

Even so, it’s another similarity she hadn’t previously considered. They’re both born as another sacrifice to the empire, both bound by their blood to either submit to their fate or to rebel against it. Nothing in between, no freedom to be had until both it and the whole hemospectrum lies in ashes around them. Only then can they be free.

Free… Yes, because one way or another, they’re all slaves of the Condesce – although some are thoroughly complicit in the state of things, and some have suffered far more acutely than others. And as it stands, there is really only one way out.

She knows what she has to do. But the thought burns like tears and clenches her throat, and she permits herself to ignore the inevitable for a little while longer. Just like Karkat, blood might have brought her here, but it’s up to her to make her own decisions now, and to hope that they’re the right ones.

 

* * *

 

 

The tunnels smell dark, but obviously that’s not a problem. They also smell really long, winding through the rock far out of even her excellent range. The walls are damp this close to the lake, covered in some kind of faintly glowing flora, and it’s clear that the whole structure is fairly rough and unfinished, the construction robots having been instructed to focus on quantity rather than quality. Even so, Terezi reluctantly has to admit that she’s impressed.

“Sooo Eridan, how far do these tunnels actually reach?” she demands, flourishing her cane in the direction of the dark unknown ahead, with studied carelessness that causes Roxy to have to jump back or risk being hit with the tip of it. She feels it’s best to keep the humans on their toes.

“Well, you know, I suppose it goes all the way to the other human settlement.”

The statement, feigned nonchalance wrapping around it tight as corsets, is met with dead silence all around. Jane’s eyebrows shoot up, and she crosses her arms irritably. Vriska puts a hand over her eyes. Rose and Dirk exchange a glance so meaningful, it probably comes close to a full report. Karkat is clearly a very small scalding leaf fluid vessel away from shouting. Jake appears genuinely baffled. Sollux makes a face that manages to be both amused and disgusted. Feferi draws in a deep breath, her posture and expression both terse and exhausted.

“Eridan-”

“Alright, alright!” He caves almost instantly, as Terezi had figured he would. “I guess they started out just a little bit as attack tunnels, so what?”

Sollux snickers. “What’s ‘a little bit’ attack tunnels? Is that when they’re only attack tunnels every other wipe? Or just on every equinox? Or maybe the tunnels are reserved only for really lame and stupid attacks?”

“Well, it’s clearly the latter!” Vriska exclaims, dragging her hand down her face and almost pulling her glasses off in passing. “What the fuck were you thinking? Guess what, genius: Your secret way out of the hive could just as easily have been a secret way _in_ , one that’s practically made to be exploited by sea dwellers who _actually can swim_!” The vox indicating her irritation reaches the point of a screech, and even the humans flinch. “Was this why you suggested we’d build the hive right here in the first place? Who exactly were you planning to enlist to kill the humans, us? Or the people who repeatedly keep trying to kill us?”

Eridan bares his teeth at her, his grip on his gun tightening, but the berry scented color rising on his cheeks shows that at least some of those barbs hit the mark. Terezi pokes him pointedly at the back of his head with her cane, which at least causes him to erase the more immediate viciousness from his expression. Just as well, because Kanaya’s expression says she just needs one excuse, Sollux’ eyes are glowing brighter, and Dirk had casually shifted the aim of his gun to Eridan’s right shoulder. The sea dweller glances around, a cornered look on his face, and then Jake carefully reaches out and moves Eridan’s finger off the trigger of his stupid rifle. Hmm.

“How about you just explain what happened after you realized that using these as attack tunnels was a really stupid plan, huh?” Terezi demands, and to her surprise he practically sags with relief. Even he isn’t foolish enough to want to fight about this here and now. Now that’s what she would call growth, if she had more time to waste mocking him. But she suspects she doesn’t.

“Thank you, Ter. At least _someone_ will give me the benefit of even the smallest fucking doubt.”

“It’s indeed really small,” she shoots back, “and you’re wasting it fast. I’d suggest you get on with it pretty quick, Mr Berry Punch Face – before I literally punch your face.”

“Right, okay, _fine_ ,” he says, with a hurt look which leaves the prosecution completely unmoved. “Once the whole human mating ritual thing was decided on, and everyone was talking about where to put the new hive, yes, I may have asked Fef to put it here, close to where I was working.”

The face Feferi pulls suggests that ‘asked’ in this context in fact means something closer to ‘whined and nagged’, which admittedly is a tried and true tactic in this context. Most of them would rather not deal with Eridan’s emotional dramatics. “And why did you think this was important?” Terezi walks around him, a way of casually reminding him how surrounded he is as she adds: “Assuming, that is, that you in fact hadn’t planned to lead an attack on the humans that would immediately put their hostage – that is to say Karkat – in danger?”

“Because I didn’t buy it, alright?!” he spits. “The whole gooey bullshit about how they were all going to play nice with the humans because they’re not as useless as they look, or whatever. It sounded like stupid, fake, made-up shit! Which meant it was probably some kind of set-up, and at some point we were going to need a way out of it.”

Vriska’s face is doing something kind of amazing – Terezi can smell the conflicted expression even though she’s half turned away. She clearly wants to chew Eridan out more, but at the same time she can’t help agreeing that he in fact had a point, or deny that she’d had some of the same misgivings. Equius is shifting a bit awkwardly too; no doubt he had also harbored some doubts concerning the sincerity of the peace treaty and the intentions of his fellows in the higher blood castes. He hadn’t said anything to that effect, but maybe that’s not surprising from the one troll in their group who is still deeply conflicted about their future rebellion against the entire structure of the hemospectrum. All three of them, Equius, Vriska and Eridan, are quintessential products of their upbringing among the higher castes, so it stands to reason that they would be the ones most uneasy when presented with the uncharacteristic behavior of their peers. Eridan had simply decided to act on his feelings, in a typically rash and self-centered manner, but it turned out to be for the best even so.

She wonders briefly what Gamzee had thought about it. But who can even tell with that guy?

“But if you’d already figured out that this was all some clever cabal to ambuscade the lot of us and play us all for stooges… why didn’t you just say something?” Jake demands.

Eridan sighs, chewing on his lower lip for a moment. “Because maybe I could see why no one would fucking listen if I tried, and I- I figured maybe if I did it this way, I could...” He snarls, shaking his head. “Never mind. Maybe I was just really fucking tired a people acting like they have to handle me all the time.”

For some reason, the statement makes Jake’s eyes widen dramatically, and then he nods. The rest of them just exchange glances, not sure what to make of this apparent bid for redemption. A concept Terezi personally has put very little faith in, but then again… she grimaces, fingering the object in her pocket, the cold metal forming the simple curves and loops of the sign of the Signless. They all have one hidden somewhere on their person, tokens they started to wear when they first left Alternia, but had since had the good sense to hide most of the time. She knows Karkat hates it, and maybe she’d started wearing hers as a way to fuck with him back when they were still dating, she honestly can’t even remember. But now… now it’s important. Maybe it means something.

His honorable tyranny is still out on the matter, she decides. Well, the new one, considering what happened to the old one.

“I, uh, don’t want to interrupt or anything,” Tavros ventures hesitantly, from where he’s still confined to being strapped to Gamzee’s back. They really ought to be able to figure out something more practical than the chair for him, but their culture hasn’t exactly ever excelled at making life easier for anyone deemed to show any weakness. “But, well, maybe this place is not exactly, um, the best place to be having this discussion... or any discussion at all, maybe? What with the very deadly people who will probably break into the hive and try to find us soon, is what I mean.” His eyes flicker toward the now sealed entrance to the aventube, fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm against Gamzee’s shoulder. “So if the tunnels go to the human settlements, I think that might be a good thing right now, even if the whole attack tunnel thing really was, mm, incredibly stupid. Because I think maybe we’ll be safer if we go there, all things considered.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to be that guy,” Dirk chimes in, “but I’m gonna have to side with Tavros on this. I enjoy a good alien soap opera as much as the next man, and especially if it involves some asshole’s attempt at constructing his own redemption arc, but you know what I like more? Not being shot at in structurally unsound tunnels. Let’s move.”

“Besides,” Roxy ventures, “mom is back at the other settlement right now. I bet she could totes help us come up with a plan. And mmmaybe it would be a good idea that the humans find out that the jig is about as up as any little silly dance can be, before the trolls on this planet make their move or whatever. There’s kind of a shit ton of civilians there, ya know?”

That is a thought that leaves a bit of a bitter taste in her mouth. Sure, it’s just this random bunch of aliens who honestly don’t seem to trust them much, but apart from how some of them came up with the idiotic wedding thing in the first place, it’s not like they’ve done anything to deserve this suddenly volatile political situation. And most of them had seemed so… soft and harmless. They clearly weren’t warriors, and if shit is about to go down, she can’t imagine that they’ll be able to do anything except flee.

Karkat appears to feel borderline sick with the thought, and the humans’ expressions range from tense to obviously upset. A quick sniff in the direction of the rest of her friends shows that they’re not entirely happy with it either.

“Right,” Eridan says, clearly just relieved to be off the hook for the time being. He frowns at the control panel next to the aventube entrance, fiddles with it slightly, then turns to Sollux with the most amazing mix of a pleading and haughty expression, which mostly just gives the impression that he’s suffering some sort of digestive upset. “Sol, the protocol?”

Sollux makes a number of uncharitable noises under his breath and shoulders Eridan out of the way. “I programmed this port with a self destruct mechanism,” he explains as he taps away at the keys, “mostly because this idiot apparently wants everything to be able to self destruct if possible, as if his incompetence needs help with that. But I guess right now it’s kind of useful if it disconnects and floods once someone uses it from the other side. I’ll put it on a delay too, let those suckers have a real good soak.”

It doesn’t take long, and just like that they are fleeing again, albeit with a bit more purpose than if they were to simply leave the planet right away. This way, they’re ceding ground, but they hopefully don’t have to abandon all of their plans. They ought to be pretty used to things not going their way by now, and in a way, Terezi prefers these moments to when nothing is happening and they’re all just waiting for the next shoe to drop. Strategy is important, but even the most brilliant strategies amount to little more than self-congratulatory fantasies if no one makes a move.

She doesn’t even need to smell Vriska’s expression where she’s jogging next to her to know that she’s unhappy with how things are going. The fact that they’d been tricked into this situation in the first place must irk her, even if technically speaking they hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter. To sneak out of there now and seek aid with the humans obviously isn’t making anything better, and Terezi is pretty sure that there’s a big blowup with Feferi coming pretty soon. Well, if that happens it happens. She’d intervened earlier because they’d been short of time right then, but if this is the direction the two of them want to take this, then she’s not going to stand in their way. Not her quadrant, not her festival primates, so to speak. It might even be a good thing. If anyone could match and even push back against Vriska in that quadrant, it would just have to be someone who had been hatched to rule an entire civilization.

The thought makes her smile a bit, even as they descend further into the rocky crust of the planet, and she feels as if she can actually smell the enormous weight suspended above them. The brief whiff she catches of Kanaya’s expression over her shoulder seems ill at ease – for someone belonging to a caste that is normally meant to spend most of their lives underground, she’d always been unusually uncomfortable with tight and dark spaces. Jane’s expression is clearly disquieted as well, every once in a while she glances upwards toward the ceiling and shudders, and Terezi can’t say she blames her. The air that is pumped into the tunnel from the surface arrives stale and metallic, making her senses feel numb. They’d all grabbed what they could in the way of food and water, and Eridan had indicated that there would be supply stations later on, but Terezi is pretty sure nothing is going to help wash the unpleasant taste out of her mouth until they reach the surface again.

Which will take a while. The ride out to the seaside settlement had taken a couple of hours via hovercraft, and even if traveling through the tunnels is a lot faster than trekking across the uneven landscape above, it will at the very least take them the better part of a day. Maybe longer. She can hear Karkat’s slightly labored breathing behind her, knows he doesn’t have the same stamina as the rest of them, and he’s not even the one who seems to suffer the worst from the pace they’ve set. Jake keeps stumbling as he runs, breath catching loudly, sweat drenching the back of his shirt despite it being pretty chilly underground. From what she understands, humans are surprisingly hardy for how they look, but it still takes them a lot longer to recover from substantial injury than it does trolls. His body simply isn’t at its peak condition right now, and he probably hasn’t had time to maintain his endurance while recovering. His left arm also appears to be wrapped around the prosthetic, probably to prevent the weight of it from hurting his shoulder. She has noticed Dirk glancing over his shoulder more than once at him, mouth tightening unhappily every time, and Eridan has looked back once or twice as well, but Jake either pretends he doesn’t notice or is too focused on running. A couple of times, Jane has had to catch him as he stumbles, but so far he hasn’t had to stop.

Even so, they will have to slow down sooner or later. At least as of yet, their pursuers likely won’t know where they are or where they’re heading, which ought to buy them some time, the one factor which is at its most dire premium right now. But what else is new? They’ve been permanently out of time ever since the assassination attempts, the trial, the escape, the meteor, the whole Green Sun bullshit. They’re not dead yet. And as long as they live, so does the rebellion.

As long as they live, there’s still a plan, and she’s not going to let it fail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short, but I felt like cutting off the chapter here worked better than the alternative. Since the previous one was a bit long, I guess it comes out even ~o/ Also I picked two perspectives that are harder to write for this chapter because I like to mess with myself.  
> Oh, and I swear there will be more ship + feelings focus on the next one, it's just that sometimes you apparently set out to write an ordinary arranged marriage AU and somehow it becomes a full-blown space opera and you just have to roll with it. Welp. Thank you all for your patience <3


	20. Freeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A temporary lull means some very important conversations have to happen. No one is ready for that, but they do their best anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LORD okay, this is definitely longer so go me. It is also incredibly talky, god, why is everyone so wordy save me.

It’s a long night, and a long day follows, only to melt unnoticed into night once more. The darkness of the tunnels doesn’t change much, very few sources of light are available, and mostly the humans are left to see by the light of Kanaya’s skin and Sollux’ crackling force field. They tell the time loosely, since checking their various chronometric devices depresses more than it soothes, and the hours are mostly measured in when they have to stop for rest or food. The supply stations are of course stocked with troll food, which is heavy in protein and fat and lays like a lead weight on your digestive system after hours of walking, running, slipping, climbing. But at least there’s a lot of it, and fresh water for them to carry with them as they go.

The uniformity begins to wear on them after a while, casting a pall of doubt and intense claustrophobia over the party; it is hard to tell how much time has passed, or to get a sense of how far they have come when their surroundings hardly change at all. At times, they pass through natural caves, spaces filled with towering black stalagmites and stalactites, often covered in angular facets or strange swirls of dark grey, silver, copper, brown. Perhaps Rose would find these places more appealing to pass through, if they weren’t a reminder of a continuous problem.

Their communicators won’t work.

Well, the trolls’ devices still do, they’re not affected, but they also do not have access to the channels of communication which would be really useful right now, the closed personal network with which they would normally communicate with their ship computer. After the whole mess involving the Green Sun Corporation and in particular what was done to Jade, they had all grown wary of using more accessible SkaiaNet channels. They had trusted in the complete integrity of their employers’ informational grid, and it had almost been their undoing. So Roxy and Hal had created a way for their communication to stay completely undetected unless one had access specifically to their own personal devices.

Which, again, is a problem if said devices refuse to work.

There’s really nothing very sinister about it, just a stroke of bad luck to compound the trouble they’ve already faced. One of the reasons this planet had been colonized in the first place is the huge deposits of minerals available, running thick through the harder rocks beneath the sandstone, shale and schist above. Far underground and contending with constant disruptions in the form of magnetite, heavy metals, dense coal pockets, and sources of wildly fluctuating natural radiation… it’s no wonder they are unable to connect to any communication beacons up above.

They’d contemplated using the trolls’ devices to alert the human settlement of the situation, but Sollux admits through gritted teeth that he’s not sure if any tech using the empire’s internal network could be considered secure in the current situation. And if they’re not, any message to the human settlement might simply indicate to their enemies where they’re going, incentivizing their pursuers to move on it. They could all end up walking straight into an ambush, not to mention the danger they would put a lot of innocent people in.

So instead they push onward, trying to move as fast as possible in less than ideal circumstances. After a certain point, it becomes clear that Eridan hasn’t actually traversed this far into the caves himself yet, leaving the construction entirely to the robots. One cave they enter is covered entirely by black sand underfoot, the walls sparkling here and there with black crystals, and the moment they enter both Eridan and Feferi simultaneously hiss and clutch at their heads, reeling. They have to be guided through it, and as they’re on the way out, Jake accidentally gets his arm stuck to the wall. Rose stops for a moment as Jane helps him pry it loose, taking one of her knitting needles out of her bag and letting it go close to the rock. With a soft tinkle, it instantly attaches itself to one of the black crystals, and although it doesn’t take a lot of strength to retrieve it, she can still feel a definite resistance. A lodestone cave, then.

A bit further along, Terezi holds up her hands for those behind her to stop, calling out to those ahead. When everyone has come to a halt, she walks ahead of the group, her impish face sharp with concentration as she sniffs the air ahead. Then she makes a disgusted face. “Everyone, cover your squawk gapers and cartilaginous nubs, please, and when I tell you not to breathe… well, don’t breathe, it’s that simple. Got it?”

This cave is thankfully relatively small, and they pass through it quickly, wearing various corners of shirts, dresses and capes pulled up over their faces, their hearts pounding as they struggle not to breathe. Rose looks around in the flicker of the moving lights and sharp shadows, to see the dark rock glittering with what looks like tiny metallic pearls… no, those are droplets. Up ahead, she sees Dirk gesturing urgently that they should stay away from the walls, but she doesn’t actually need telling. She has no particular yearning to cover her skin in mercury.

The floor starts sloping gradually upwards, and not soon after they enter a cave where they have to slog through mud which, startlingly, turns out to be warm to the touch. They’re far above the fossil seas from which most fresh water in this colony is drawn from, so the presence of mud can only mean one thing, and it’s a welcome fact. The tunnels are passing close to where the salt water springs are – and therefore they are almost by the settlement at last. Despite how the damp air smells heavily of rotten eggs, Terezi lifts her chin and grins, drawing in a deep and loud breath. “There’s fresh air somewhere up ahead!” she announces, and Rose thinks that this must come as an even greater relief for her.

Next to her Kanaya lets out a shaky breath, as if she’s been holding it ever since they entered the caves, and Rose can see the tension starting to melt out of her shoulders. She reaches out and gently twines her fingers with her wife’s, squeezing her hand in quiet support, and Kanaya’s expression lightens slightly as a small smile pulls on her black lips. Her skin seems brighter too, as if the sheer relief of soon being out of the tunnels is shining right through. As the radiant light cascades over the uneven rock around them, making the bizarre stick figures of old fossilized bones and shells appear to dance, they squeeze each others’ hands and pick up the pace slightly, eagerness temporarily overriding exhaustion. It will come at a price, because their rest stops have been brief and sleep practically nonexistent ever since the attack, but at least this particular ordeal will be over.

The tunnel opens into a rock crevasse a small distance from the town, hidden behind a cluster of charmingly bone-like shrubbery. They emerge into the feeble predawn light, scattered across a haphazard tumble of blue clouds far above, as a faint rosy nimbus crowns the horizon. Once they’re out in fresh air again, Jake stumbles and collapses to the ground, and doesn’t appear to be able to get back on his feet again, tottering like a newborn fawn when he tries. Apparently he’d pushed through on sheer stubbornness for quite a while. There’s a brief debate over whether they should leave him there with a few out of the group, but splitting up seems like the worst possible idea right now, and whether they’ll be slowed down if they try to support or carry him. Aradia interrupts this by simply walking up to Jake and, with a casual wave of her hand, lifting him up as if he were a feather in a gust of wind. He almost overbalances for a second, then thanks her profusely while pointing out as tactfully as possible that he’d still prefer to have both feet on the ground. She laughs and lowers him back down, although Rose has to presume that she’s still supporting him as they start the short trek towards the town.

The house that used to be theirs still has a light in one of the windows on the third floor, the steady warm flame of a kerosene lamp. Rose rolls her eyes. It’s not like they don’t have perfectly serviceable sun cell lights, but it’s just like their mom to want to embrace the rustic lifestyle of the colony as some obscure kind of statement. It had taken her long to accept that she is in fact sincere when she does things like this, and not playing some sort of elaborate prank on everyone else’s expense. Unless her sincerity is the joke, of course. But saying things like that makes her sound like Dirk and Dave, and she refuses to engage with their irony nonsense.

“I would’ve thought that no one would be awake,” Kanaya murmurs next to her, gazing up at the window. “You’re all a very inconsistently diurnal species.”

“Consistency through inconsistency is somewhat of a trademark of my mother’s,” Rose replies, offering Kanaya a thin smile which immediately prompts a questioning look. But she’s not getting into it right now. Instead she unwraps the scarf which had been keeping her warm underground from around her shoulders and hands it to Kanaya. “Right. I suggest that most of you take cover in the hovercraft bay and try to get some rest, it should be empty at this time of night. I think the four of us would like a private word with our mother. I realize this is not a cultural concept for you trolls, but it is what we humans would refer to as a family matter.”

The trolls glance at each other, displaying a number of reactions ranging from the merely confused to the openly distrustful, all of which Rose is quite happy to ignore. Considering it’s trolls who are responsible for this nightly excursion in the first place, she doesn’t feel like they can object too much to not being privy to a discussion which might concern the future of the colony. Maybe that’s nasty and cynical of her, but she’d much rather be rude than stupid.

Jane breaks the silence by sighing loudly and shooting Rose a look, and yes, she can see how she might be fed up with being constantly kept out of the Strider-Lalonde loop. She’s honestly sorry about that, and about the worry visible on Jake’s face even through the heavy fog of exhaustion, but there’s no time right now. And she really meant what she said. Some things are between family only. So she contents herself by nodding at Jane as she starts to lead everyone toward the hovercraft bay, half in gratitude and half in apology. She’ll try to mend bridges later.

Some of the trolls look like they might still argue, but Karkat brusquely starts shoving them after Jane, only stopping to glance back at Dave. Rose isn’t exactly sure what passes between them in that look, or what’s going on between the two of them in general, which is honestly new. But whatever it is, for now she decides that she tentatively approves, at the very least. Especially if it means that they get the trolls out of their hair for what will probably be a… complicated meeting with their mother.

Roxy steps up next to her and squeezes her hand briefly, signaling that she agrees that this was the best choice, and when she glances over her shoulder she sees Dave and Dirk incline their heads slightly. A unanimous vote, then, and they’re waiting for her to go first. With no hesitation, she jumps up and grabs a handhold, easily pulling herself up the facade toward that lit window. Using doors is distinctly for people who aren’t them.

The latch poses no great challenge, undone in a matter of seconds with a cleverly inserted knitting needle. But window latches has never been the reason why nobody would think to break into any home of theirs. Pushing open the window, Rose sighs as the night air moves slightly in front of her face, and she catches the dull gleam of black metal as a gun barrel almost brushes her cheek. “Please put that down, uncle. I’m not in a good mood.”

He fixes her with his inscrutable stare, and she returns it coolly, tapping her fingernails against the windowsill. Then he wordlessly lowers the gun and takes a step back, allowing her inside. She can hear her siblings squeezing through the window behind her, but she keeps her gaze on him, the way you would watch an unpredictable wild animal. His long legs carry him over to a chair in the corner of the room in two strides, moving silently and gracefully, but she nonetheless catches the almost imperceptible wince that crosses his features as he sits down. Having seen the gruesome scars through the sweat-soaked material of his shirts more than once, she can only imagine the pain it causes him. It comes as no surprise to see him reach into a pocket and fish out a small white capsule, knocking it back and swallowing it dry.

In a way, it would honestly be better if he actually was an addict, in the more classical sense that their mother is. But he doesn’t overindulge in the pain meds; rather the opposite. He takes just enough to ensure that he is still functional, just enough to keep him going through the pain, but never any more than that. If she was to make an educated guess, she’d say he’s more addicted to the pain than to the medicine.

Maybe she ought to feel more sympathy. But even before she found out what exactly he’d put Dave through, he’d never been an easy man to pity. It’s as if his very existence rejects the emotion, or just sentiment in general. As it is, hearing her little brother’s carefully controlled breathing behind her, all she can feel is a strange undercurrent of revulsion.

Now that he’s relatively passive, she finally lets her gaze drift over to her mother. She’s sitting by her desk, her fingers resting on a keyboard, the ubiquitous glass balancing on top of the holoprojector that is providing the slightly excessive numbers of screens which are hovering in the air above her desk. Her perfectly maintained hair has been gathered up in a rather sloppy bun on the top of her head, the simple and elegant sleevelike shape of her dress causing it to ride up and wrinkle when she sits down. She has a red mark on her cheek from where she has leaned it on her hand, and her eyes are wide with surprise as she watches her four bedraggled children. Corn blue, with just a hint of pink around the pupil. Actual occular albinism, a far cry from the fantastical eye colours she had gifted the four of them with. She has corrective implants which adjust her vision and darken her eyes when she’s outside, and their uncle’s eyewear is as much a necessity as it is a fashion accessory. What are the odds of a pair of fraternal twins both afflicted with such an anomaly? It makes Rose wonder about the history of their family, and exactly how inbred they had been even before her mother decided to create her own children out of her own and her brother’s genetic material.

But of course she doesn’t know. Apart from her immediate family, the idea of being anchored to a consecutive line of genetic ancestors is as alien to her as it appears to be to the trolls. They’ve only ever had each other.

She has been silent too long, and Dirk’s very limited patience for social conventions has reached its end. “Dave and Karkat were attacked by troll assassins. Seems like that was their plan all along.”

So much for building any kind of tension. She knows for a fact that Dirk is every bit the drama queen that she is, and the delivery of that line certainly proves it, but sometimes she finds his methods too blunt.

Their mother frowns slightly, but Rose notes that she doesn’t really look surprised. Of course she doesn’t. Very few things ever manage to surprise her. Their uncle bares his teeth and makes a sharp, humorless sound that might be a laugh, although his mouth immediately goes back to being a thin, pale line. “Something was gonna happen sooner or later. But I can’t say I was expecting assassins. Sounds like a stupid way to get started.”

“Do you know why?” Their mother turns around properly in her chair, reaching automatically for her glass. “I mean, I could tell there was some internal tension among the trolls, but… well, this just doesn’t make sense. Neither of you seems like a very important strategic target. No offense, darling.” She offers Dave a small smile before sipping her drink.

“Yes, that’s what we thought,” Rose replies, trying to decide how much to divulge. “And I imagine the trolls were rather content to let us keep us in that happy state. For their part, I think it was part of a somewhat clumsy bluff, and perhaps they also thought they were a lot safer here than was actually the case.”

Her mother raises one eyebrow in silent inquiry, and Dave stops fidgeting for a moment to reply. “Seems Karkat is considered important somehow. We noticed pretty damn quick that they’re awfully protective of a guy they presumably viewed as expendable, and I guess I also caught on to him being hells of cagey about something because the guy needs to work on his poker face.” He pauses, and like she had, Rose imagines that he’s deciding how much he wants to actually say. “One of the assassins called him ‘Signless’ right before trying to smash him in the way that you need more than a cigarette to recover from. It’s some mumbo-pokus shit to do with ancestors that they’ve been using as a political ploy, and it seems like someone is taking it pretty seriously, not to mention personally.”

Even taking into account how he always downplays things, Rose can tell that he’s trying not to overstate the actual significance of whatever Karkat’s role in this is. To protect him, maybe? She hadn’t heard the ‘Signless’ thing before, but it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to figure it out. Karkat’s strangely colorless sign, and the hints of red in his eyes that don’t match up to any shade on the hemospectrum. Taken together with all that talk about some sort of ancestral destiny, and it paints a positively fascinating picture… but perhaps one which they don’t need to delve too deeply into now. Especially with the most unpredictable member of their family present, and with a very real threat hanging over the colony.

“Yeah, academically speaking I’m sure it’s fascinating – and believe me, I’d like to be the first to take the piss out of my little brother for accidentally managing to marry an alien folk hero who may or may not have some kind of quasi-deity status – but maybe a deep dive into troll lore can wait until people aren’t quite as keen on having us all dead.” Seems like Dirk agrees, too. Leave it to him to strategically downplay the whole thorny emotional situation here, while at the same managing to casually be a dick about it. Rose would applaud him, if that wouldn’t be pretty distinctly tasteless at this particular juncture. “The point is, as I’m sure you’re already aware, that they aren’t actually all that invested in the peace treaty. Now that their plan of exploiting it has not just backfired but practically dickslapped them in the face, we can’t be sure what they’ll do. It looks like the trolls have a plan, and since we’re all involved whether we want to or not-” A nice little barb there, Rose thinks. “-our best option is probably to play along with them. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t make our own plans.”

Their uncle doesn’t react visibly, but their mother inclines her head slightly. Then she frowns. “Where are Jane and Jake, if you don’t mind me asking?

“With the trolls in the hovercraft bay.”

This time her exquisitely shaped eyebrows go up instead. “You trust them that much?” she demands, and while the question appears aimed at all three of them, it is clearly meant mostly for Dirk in particular. He looks a bit uncomfortable too, visibly so, which is unusual. Rose can see him lining up his defenses, not dissimilar from ones she’d use as well, or so she imagines. They have limited options, they needed to speak to them alone, the trolls would be even more distrustful if all the humans were to go inside… and so on. It’s really not hard to find reasons, but even so, to simply present an itemized list detailing why it felt reasonable to leave two dear friends in the hands of potentially hostile aliens – or your boyfriend, for that matter – seems a tiny bit cold. Maybe that’s why Dirk is choking slightly on the words.

“Yes, we do.”

This is apparently when Roxy decides to finally break her silence. It’s often like this when their family confers over difficult matters. She’ll either stay passive or simply limit herself to pitching in with whoever she agrees with the most. If at all possible, she tries to let someone else have their way, or to find a compromise that everyone is happy with. It’s so hard to tell with her, and Rose finds herself wildly vacillating between worrying that they’re all walking all over her and suspecting that she’s manipulating them all so subtly that even she can’t tell for sure. Roxy isn’t domineering like Rose, not clingy and endlessly taking up space the way Dave is, and she certainly isn’t like Dirk, who manfully manages to embody the sum of all of these traits. She’s hardly a shrinking violet, but something about her malleable nature makes her so very hard to understand, despite constantly claiming that she’s the least complicated of them.

When she does speak up, however, it’s usually for a good reason.

Now she stands with her hands on her hips, looking like she might just be a little done with all of them. Her short hair is extra curly after that last damp cave, and stands out around her head like a messy halo, catching the warm light of the lamp and the hints of green and blue from the screens. For a while she had been growing her hair really long, to the point where she had to braid it up and out of the way when she went into battle to prevent enemies from grabbing it. Then, soon after arriving on Muspel, she had suddenly chopped it all off in one go. When asked about it, she’d just shrugged a touch evasively and said it got a lot less warm that way.

“We do trust them. Really, the only way those sneaky fucks managed to pull a fast one with the whole marriage thing in the first place is because Feferi cares so much about, like… making peace with people and all that. Because they’re actually pretty good people – and even the ones that aren’t that good are loyal.” That’s actually a pretty astute summary, if Rose is to be honest. A fair few of the trolls have proven surprisingly decent considering their upbringing, and the rest at least clearly have a highly developed sense of what’s theirs and the need to protect it. “And they _all_ care about Karkat. Even the guy who tried to shoot him once really seems to care. It’s like he’s the one that holds them all together, he’s the one who kind of makes them a team rather than just a random group of people. So they wouldn’t do all this, risk him getting killed, just as a part of some kind of plot. Anyway, what for? The trolls don’t really have any reason to try to get to us; they’re not _our_ enemies.” She hesitates, then smiles and adds. “Actually, they’re our friends.”

Rose notices the way her uncle’s jaw tightens slightly, wonders what it is he’s not saying. She could try to find out, but… she has to hold back a shudder just thinking about trying to get inside his mind. Whatever has been done to his body, she suspects that something far worse happened there at some time in the past. It doesn’t feel right, somehow. Even just approaching it in the past has made her feel like there are eyes watching her from underneath her own skin. The image is surprisingly visceral. So for now, he gets to keep his secrets – whatever it is, it doesn’t change the fact that Roxy has spoken the truth, and what she said comes as a relief to all of them. The trolls are their friends.

For now, they’re all in this together.

“Right,” Dave says, and there’s an edge in his voice. “So now we’ve established that despite our best intentions, we’re pathologically incapable of cutting to the chase without getting caught up in a lot of pointless bullshit. I’m honestly fucking delighted that we could come to this conclusion as a family, because it makes me feel less singled out on that front, but maybe we could actually manage to work out some kind of plan before I have a full-scale anxiety conniption about the enemies that might descend on this peaceful little town at any moment? Thanking you all in advance.”

The rest of his siblings nod mutely, glancing at each other, trying very hard not to act like Dave lashing out doesn’t make them all rather nervous nowadays. Their mother gets up, just a tad unsteadily, but she quickly finds her balance despite the mostly empty liquor bottle on the floor which Rose has managed to spot by now. She walks over to Dave, her bare feet making barely a sound as they brush swiftly across the hardwood floor, and she puts her hand gently on his cheek. For a moment she just looks at him very seriously and steadily. He’s taller than her, but somehow the gesture seems to turn him from a young man into a boy for a moment, and Rose can practically hear his jaw unclench.

“What do you want to do, sweetie?”

Rose can see the faint flicker of his eyes behind the shades; he’s apparently waiting for some kind of signal from her. She nods at him to go ahead, and he lets out a soft sigh. “We don’t know the trolls’ plan yet. They’ve got something they need to do on this planet, something that seems pretty important, but then we should probably all get the fuck out of here as soon as we can. As long as we’re here, it seems we’re only going to draw attacks to ourselves, and that’s the last thing anyone needs.”

“As for what _you_ should be doing, mother,” Rose fills in, waiting a beat until she turns to her, nodding to indicate that she’s listening, “it’s to arm whatever defenses there are, contact SKAIA, and get people ready to evacuate if necessary. We still don’t know if they’ll choose to retaliate or not, but you need to be ready for that eventuality. You’re already cognizant of the fact that their colony is more established than ours, and practically every individual of their species is raised as a warrior, while the people here are mainly farmers and technicians. You’ll be at an unmistakable disadvantage without reinforcements.”

Her mother raises one eyebrow at her, because it’s not as if Rose is saying something she doesn’t know, but they’re both perfectly aware of what Rose is actually trying to communicate. That they’re leaving on their own, and she’s not certain when they’ll see each other again. That this isn’t like a mission, where she can expect to be constantly updated on their whereabouts and status by SKAIA. They’re in the dark now. Her mother smiles tiredly, reaching out to brush a lock of hair away from Rose’s face, tilting her chin up slightly and holding her gaze. If Rose knows her at all, she must’ve taken into consideration that something like this might happen when she signed her name on that treaty. She must’ve known how uncertain the future really was.

She must’ve decided that they’d be able to handle it. Time to find out if she was right.

 

* * *

 

 

From the outside, the hovercraft bay mostly looks like a scaled-up version of the constructs humans use to store useful fauna in. Inside, the walls are made of some sort of shiny white metal, and there are numerous platforms of varying size staggered around the walls which can be extended, expanded and joined up as needed. On every level there is at least one massive gate which leads to a loading dock outside. Currently there are only two ships in there, the huge one belonging Dave’s mother and a smaller one which looks beat up and barely functional. The air is cool and dry, and Karkat shivers slightly where he sits, wrapping some sort of tarp around his shoulders. It’s filthy, but at least it provides a bit of warmth.

He can tell not everyone is happy with being sent here to cool their strut pods while decisions are being made by the humans, and if he’s to be honest, Karkat doesn’t feel great about it either. But he’d felt even less willing to stand around and argue where they were still all far too exposed. Besides… by and large, he finds that he does at the very least trust Dave enough that he’s willing to accept his judgement on this.

Jane also points out a touch acerbically that if this was part of some plan to betray the trolls, then yes, by all means does it make sense for the other humans to leave their one experienced medic and the one guy who is in no state to defend himself with them. Really excellent plan, that. She looks ready to haul off and hit Equius if he keeps grumbling, so it’s probably just as well that Nepeta orders her moirail to sit down and stop ‘furssing’ immediately. Jane even manages a pale little smile in reply, before she makes a halfhearted attempt to sweep a patch of ground free of dirt and sits down next to Jake’s prone form.

The moment Aradia had let go of his body with her powers, Jake had stumbled over to a chemical-stained sink and retched noisily, arms trembling with exhaustion. Then he’d collapsed on the floor, and Karkat isn’t sure if he’d fainted or just fallen asleep really quickly. The metal floor is bitterly cold, and even unconscious Jake had looked so miserable that Karkat found his insides twisting with sympathy. Despite how nauseatingly tired he was too, he’d been ready to get up again and try to find something to keep the human warm with. Before he’d had a chance to, however, Eridan had stalked over and dropped his cape over Jake with ill grace. Now he’s curled up in a slightly more natural sleeping position than before, the heavy purple fabric wrapped around him, and his breathing seems to have finally evened out. Jane sighs quietly and reaches out, brushing her fingers tentatively through Jake’s fringe, and then presses the inside of her wrist against his forehead. Karkat sees her nod to herself, and then she puts her fingers against his neck for a moment, looking down at some sort of device attached to her wrist. Another nod. She leans back against the wall and closes her eyes, and Karkat recognizes something both in the relief and the strain that still remains.

They wait in relative silence, all of them exhausted, but many of them far too keyed up to attempt to sleep. Vriska is rolling dice between her fingers ceaselessly, but otherwise sits still, careful not to disturb Terezi who lies folded up in awkward angles with her head in her lap. Nepeta has straight up curled her entire body up like a cat on top of Equius’ thighs, making it functionally impossible for him to move around at all for fear of touching her, and thereby most likely hurting her. Sollux has opened up his husktop and is muttering distractedly to himself in letters and numbers. Probably trying to figure out a way of using the Multigallactic Mesh Medium while still avoiding detection by the empire. Of course they’ve got other means of contacting the rest of their fledgling rebellion, but it sure as fuck would still be useful.

Gamzee is sitting with his head tilted back, staring vacantly up at the complex machinery above meant to open up the roof to let the hovercrafts in and out. Karkat has no idea when he last had a pie, and the thought nags at him. They’re going to have to do something about that before they leave the planet. Tavros is asleep on the floor next to him, head awkwardly cushioned on his arms. There’s no point in putting together his four wheel device right now, and they’re really going to have to come up with a better solution for him soon. Dirk and Jane had promised to look into it.

Kanaya had sat down next to Karkat earlier, and now she’s leaning more and more heavily against his shoulder, her head dropping fitfully down toward her chest. If she wasn’t so tall, he’d be worried about her about her poking his eye out with her horns. In her hands, twined tightly around her fingers, he’s not entirely surprised to see one of the small amulets depicting his sign. His irritation and dread at the thought of his friends carrying those wretched things seems to have been ground slowly into resignation, even though he’d like to think it hasn’t gone as far as to melt into acceptance. When he closes his eyes now, he can see a pair of pleading red eyes meeting his own, the same color which is bleeding slowly into them as well. The same color as Dave’s too.

He knows what he needs to do.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when the door opens and Dave and his family slinks in, although before it closes he notes that the sky is a lot brighter now. Good. Hopefully that will buy them some time. He has a hard time imagining his people attacking this place during the daylight hours.

They’re not saying much as they file in, looking preoccupied with their own thoughts. Dirk heads straight for Jake, lying down next to him and wrapping a protective arm around him, face buried against his broad back. Karkat thinks he might actually see a small tremor pass through him, but he can’t be sure. Rose and Roxy sit down next to Jane, starting to talk to her in low voices. Mending bridges, he’d imagine.

Dave sits down next to him, throwing the pelt of some sort of animal across his own and Karkat’s laps. Karkat tugs at it a little bit so it covers Kanaya too.

“So,” Dave says, and there’s a clear weight of expectancy on that one word. “About that explanation you owe me.”

Karkat sighs, but he’s been mentally preparing himself for this, and he thinks he knows where to start, at least. He gestures vaguely at the amulet in Kanaya’s hands, and then at the sign on his own shirt. “This isn’t actually a proper sign,” he says, and he can’t tell if that’s bitterness or wistfulness putting a strain on his own voice. “It doesn’t exist in the sign alphabet of any of the blood castes.” He looks at Dave to see if he’s following, but the blank black glass of his glasses only reflect his own face back at him, and the rest of Dave’s features stay impassive. He hasn’t got the faintest clue what Karkat is talking about, does he? “Oh for fuck’s s- Alright. Fine. This is because,” he works his mouth around the unpleasant taste of the truth, still hard to spit out after all these sweeps, “I’m not on the hemospectrum. My blood is a mutation, and by all rights within our society, I should already have been culled like the freak I am. There shouldn’t even have been a lusus to take care of me, and the moment my trials were over, that would normally be the end of me.” He squints suspiciously, “Is even the tiniest, most pathetic shred of this getting through to you, or am I wasting my breath as usual? I mean, that’s practically my dearest fucking hobby by now, so I guess I’ll keep talking, but it would be nice if you made an effort to pretend for my sake, at least.”

Dave shrugs slightly. “I don’t get all of it, but I think I’ve got the general gist, yeah.” He tilts his head a bit. “So if it’s not a real ‘sign’, whatever that means, then what is it? It’s got something to do with why you’re not actually long dead now, right? And that whole ‘Signless’ business.”

“Well done, you are displaying signs of modest intelligence. One day you might be able to outsmart most kinds of mollusks.” That’s mostly to cover up his relief that Dave really does seem to be catching on, and thankfully Dave seems to understand as much. They don’t actually need to have an argument right now. “Apparently I’m not the only genetic anomaly of my kind to miraculously survive. My sign is… you could call it the symbol of the one who came before me, I guess. It’s all pretty fucking morbid when you get into it, and honestly I don’t feel like giving you a detailed description of exactly how he was tortured to death, so let’s stick with the basics. When he was alive, he- he tried to overthrow Her Imperious Condescension, the hemospectrum, the whole structure of our society. He tried to make a better world, and of course they found him and crushed him mercilessly because that’s how these things go I guess.” He breathes out explosively, rubbing his hands across his face.

“Oh.” Dave is silent for a moment, then nods. “Right, I think I can see how this one goes. He had followers, am I right? Devout as shit followers who still believed in what he said even after he was just a wet smear and a bonus on some executioner’s payroll, and though he was gone, they still preserved the symbol of him and his death and hung on to it even while persecuted. Was there some kind of text of his teachings too? I bet there was.”

Karkat gives him a hard look to see if he’s making some kind of joke. Does he already know about all of this? But as far as he can tell, Dave seems to genuinely be waiting for his answers. “Sort of. Most of it is word of mouth retelling of what someone who was far from fucking stable at that point scrawled with blood on a cave wall, so some of it’s a bit… garbled. But the cave still exists, and apparently Nepeta has been there.” He glances at her sleeping form, her hands and feet twitching slightly in some dream. “You’d think the writings would be completely illegible by now, but she said she could read it all, and you know what, fuck it, I wasn’t going to argue.”

“And the person who wrote all that… that’s Nepeta’s ancestor, which against all expectations is a word that apparently means something in troll society. I mean, it’s obviously an approximation due to translation shenanigans, but it’s still kind of surprising.”

“Yeah, obviously it doesn’t mean the same as it does for humans. An ancestor within troll culture is someone in the past who was more genetically similar to you than anyone else in your blood caste.” He rolls his eyes. “You could say I wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice.”

Dave’s lips quirk as he lets out an amused little sound, and somehow that makes Karkat feel a bit better about himself. “Okay, so you’re supposed to be the genetic descendant of, shit, basically troll Jesus. But-”

“What the exhaust-sniffing fuck is a ‘Jesus’?” Karkat demands, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar word.

“Like, a religious figure meant to deliver the world to the meek and kick the ass of all sinners, basically. He’s this messianic dude who turns up and is like, yo, you people are the wheat and you get eternal life, and the rest of you are chaff and you get to burn.” Dave hesitates, grimacing. “Look, most of literally anything I know is actually the result of pop culture osmosis, and Comparative Cultural Philosophies was never my strongest subject, not to mention how I’ve never been to all that many of the human colonies where they still practice that belief. The point I’m trying to make is it’s this supernatural savior who was sacrificed sometime in the past and then thousands of years later swans in, Interstellarbucks in hand and eyeliner on point, to judge the world.”

Karkat frowns. “I guess I can see why you’d make a comparison like that. But it’s not a religious thing, not like the stupid highblood cult and their ‘mirthful messiahs’ musclebeast leavings. The whole thing with ancestors is more like a- a superstition, or maybe a recuperation time story for good little highblood kids about why they’re so much better than the rest of us.” He lapses into broody silence, picking at the animal pelt in his lap, and Dave raises his eyebrows.

“Call me crazy, but you don’t actually seem that wild about the whole thing. Which is just as well, because I was gonna have to ask sooner or later… where’s the proof of anything? I mean, sure, your friend found a cave and it seems like this Singless dude existed, but I don’t really see why that has anything to do with you. Apart from some superstitious assholes wanting you dead, does the whole Ancestor thing actually mean jack shit?”

“See, that’s exactly what I used to think! It was just this useful little detail we could throw in when people were on the fence about joining the revolution, you know? Hey, by the way, did you know that the Sufferer’s descendant is on our side? Aren’t you just shitting yourself to join his side, because as we all know, it all went _so great_ the last time – I mean fuck, don’t even get me started on the Summoner...” He squirms uncomfortably where he sits, his conscience eating away at the flippancy of his words. “Except I guess I can understand why people would cling to something like that. When people have next to fucking nothing, sometimes all they can afford is the shittiest, most flimsy of all participation trophies – hope.”

Dave tilts his head to the side. “So is that really all it is? Just a ruse to get more people on your side that ended up backfiring when it turned out just what kind of hardcore believers in that shit your enemies are?”

Karkat hunches his shoulders until his ears are practically draped across them, burying his face in his hands and dragging in a deep breath, holding it as if he’s trying not to drown. He wants to say yes. He knows without looking that those of his friends who are still awake are listening intently by now, and it’s not like they have to strain all that much, because that’s just the shitty curse of his unbearable voice. Again he lives through the shock of another night, this one sweeps ago, when he’d woken up to an attempt on his life for the first time. Terezi’s tousled hair stuck to her cheek, her eyes wide and flickering, caught in a moment of confusion before she was fully awake. Somehow she was still moving to shield his body with hers, the only thing she had to protect him with. Strong hands wrenched her away from him, there was a flash of blades and a sickly sound, and Terezi screamed. She crumpled to the ground like a dropped rag, her eyes gushing teal blood like thick, unnatural tears, and it all happened so fast that Karkat only realized he hadn’t moved, hadn’t breathed, hadn’t done _anything_ when the highblood finally descended on him. His eyes were burning with tears, his throat closing, and he was helpless. There was nothing he could do.

And then… Vriska. Vicious and fast, face twisted in a snarl, but quieter than she’d ever been before. All he’d been able to hear was her carefully controlled breathing, a gasp cut short, and a dying gurgle. She’d held her dead foe in her hands and stared down at her, as if furious that she could not cause her any more pain. But her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped her, and a moment later she was kneeling on the floor with Terezi in her arms, glaring balefully at Karkat through held-back tears.

_Do something!_

He lets out the breath unsteadily just as he’s starting to feel his lips go numb, lowering his hands into his lap. “No, that’s not all. I’ve been having… dreams. I’ve talked to him. It really was him – fuck me, I know it was, no matter how much I want to just pretend that I’m full of shit like I usually am. He told me-”

_Do something!_

Dave’s hand wraps tentatively around his, and he looks like he has no idea what to do with it, so he just holds on.

“But the thing is, what the fuck am I even supposed to do with that? So he was really real, and he wants me to carry on where he left off, but how does that actually change shit?” He can feel the muscles in his chest cramping strangely, causing him to tremble and struggle through every word. “I don’t have any kinds of powers, I’m a shitty fighter, and no matter what I keep saying I’ve never done anything as a leader that hasn’t ended in an unequivocal disaster. As anything other than a- a glorified mascot, a catchy slogan, I’m completely fucking useless. And guess what? This already doomed rebellion needs more than that.”

_Do something!_

He hyperventilating now, and all Dave can really do is squeeze his hand and rub his back awkwardly, which is nice of him but it doesn’t really help. Or well, it does. It helps that he’s there. It helps that he leans in until he can feel his warm breath against his skin. It helps that he listens, and that he somehow seems to be on his side despite everything. When his face is this close to Karkat’s own, tilted down and sideways to try to catch his gaze, Karkat can see his eyes, and for once is less preoccupied with the startling colour than how soft they look right now.

Truth to be told, it’s not just that having Dave here helps, but that it’s hard to imagine dealing with this without him right now. But that’s not enough to hold back the panic. It’s been building up inside for too long.

He doesn’t dare look up and see how many of his friends have heard his whole pathetic confession, what kind of disappointment or disgust he might be able to read on their faces. The worst part is, he knows he’ll do it anyway. He’ll do it because he has to, because there is no one else, and he already knows he will fail. He’s going to let everyone down. And that’s the part he really can’t stand.

Then there are suddenly strong arms wrapped around him, a bright light shining through his eyelids which has nothing to do with the dawn outside. Kanaya rests his head against her chest, moving her body in a slow rocking motion, and somehow he finds his ragged breathing following that rhythm, slowing down until it actually feels bearable again. He can hear something that is either laughter or carefully controlled sobbing, or some sort of mix of the two. She doesn’t say anything, she just holds him. Dave’s fingers slide between his own prongs, holding on tight. He leans in further, until Karkat finds himself held between him and Kanaya, the collapsing foundations of the world somehow held in place by the two of them.

When he finally looks up, flinching a little bit in the light of Kanaya’s skin, everyone is pretending be preoccupied with something else, or at least trying to pretend; only the humans are exchanging glances, saying nothing. Somehow they’re all awake now. Then Feferi looks up and, after holding his gaze for a moment, winks at him. Terezi slowly starts to grin. Gamzee seems to snap out of his daze and gives him one of his concussed smiles. Nepeta’s face is hard to read, but she sits up straight and her eyes are bright. Aradia bounces eagerly where she sits. Kanaya raises her eyebrows, amused, and ruffles his hair. Vriska rolls her eyes, making her dice disappear between her fingers as she stands up.

“Oh my human ‘Jesus’, Karkat! We already know you’re useless.” She laughs, tossing her hair. “That’s what you’ve got us for… Signless.”


End file.
